Marija Milutinovic returns the ball during a match last season.
File Photo I The Daily Mississippian
The Ole Miss women’s tennis team kicked off its spring season this past weekend with a solid showing at the Michigan Invitational. The Rebels will now have their first dual match of the season, as they host Jackson State today at 2 p.m. at the Gillom Sports Center.
Head coach Mark Beyers was pleased with his team this weekend and said they got good action “against some of the nation’s top teams,” according to Ole Miss Sports Information.
The Rebels will be aiming to be one of those top teams this season. After the program’s fifth straight NCAA tournament appearance last season, the 2014 Rebels return most of their top players from a season ago to the court.
Senior and two-time All-SEC performer Caroline Rohde-Moe returns as the team’s No. 1 singles player, as well as one half of the 19th-ranked doubles tandem with sophomore Marija Milutinovic. The duo had a rough start to the season in last weekend’s Michigan Invitational, going 1-2 in matches against host Michigan, Georgia Tech and South Florida. Georgia Tech was their lone victory.
It was a rough weekend overall for Rohde-Moe, who also only won one of her three singles matches, a 6-2, 6-0 win over South Florida’s Loreto Alonso. Milutinovic was 2-1 in her three singles matches, defeating Nicole Murillo of Georgia Tech 6-0, 6-2 and then South Florida’s Alessandra Bonte 6-4, 6-0 before falling to Michigan’s Kristen Dodge in three sets.
The Rebels will also lean on juniors Julia Jones and Erin Stephens for strong contributions both on and off the court this season. Jones had a strong showing in singles over the weekend, defeating Michigan’s Sarah Lee 6-2, 6-2 and South Florida’s Kayla Rizzolo 6-3, 6-4. Stephens, however, was not so fortunate. She came away with just one victory in singles, a tight 7-6, 7-5 victory over South Florida’s Olga Martinez, and the two were not paired in doubles action.
Freshman Zalina Khairudinova had a strong debut weekend as a Rebel. She suffered only one loss over the weekend, a three-setter to Alexa Anton-Ohlmeyer of Georgia Tech, but picked up victories in her other three matches, two of which were doubles matches where she partnered with Jones.
Last season did not go how Beyers or his squad wanted, but they are looking to get off to a good start this season and see if they can reach some of their goals.
“(We were) a little too inconsistent last year to reach all of our goals, but we hope that experience we gained will be applied this year,” Beyers said to Ole Miss Sports Information. “We have basically our entire starting lineup back from last year, plus the addition of Zalina, and hopefully that will be a recipe for success.”
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