Women's tennis hosts ITA Grand Slam

By Seth Klempner

For the Daily

Coming off last weekend's Marquette Invitational tournament title, the Michigan women's tennis team will host the 2000 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Regional Championship.

The tournament will be held at the Varsity Tennis Center, with qualifying rounds Thursday and Friday, and the main draw Saturday and Sunday.

The tournament will involve 128 of the top players and 64 doubles pairs from across the Midwest. The tournament will be based on individual scoring. There will be players from 37 regional schools involved with each team getting at least one player in the main draw for singles. The singles finalists and the doubles champion from this weekend's tournament will advance to the National Indoor Championships in February.

Freshmen Chrissie Nolan and Kavitha Tipirneni will represent the Wolverines in the main draw. Both freshmen have had successful falls thus far. Nolan and Tipirneni have helped compensate for the departure of last year's seniors.

Nolan went 4-0 in the Marquette Invitational last weekend to win the tournament, Tipirneni placed fourth, going 3-1. Another freshman playing in the qualifying singles, Kim Plaushines, went 3-1 in the Marquette Invitational last weekend and won Flight 2 bracket.

Six other Wolverines will compete to gain one of the eight open spots in the Championship rounds. Players in the qualifying bracket must win three matches before advancing to the main draw. Michigan will also have four pairs competing in the doubles bracket this weekend with three in the main draw and one in the qualifying rounds.

This championship will be the last chance the Wolverines get to test their abilities against other players before the regular dual-meet season begins in January.