LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – For the second year in a row, the Ole Miss women’s tennis team captured the Country Club of Little Rock Invitational singles title, and this year they added the doubles title to go along with it.
Freshman Arianne Hartono (Meppel, Netherlands) teamed with Mai El Kamash to win the doubles and then followed it up with an impressive three-set win against the University of Houston’s top player, Desponita Vogasari, who is ranked No. 68 in the preseason ITA Singles Rankings.
In the singles final, Hartono won a close first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6(3) but then Vogasari came back to take the second set 6-3. Hartono didn’t flinch, getting a break in the third to win it 6-3 and her first singles title with the Rebels.
Hartono and El Kamash teamed up for the first time this weekend, and won three matches after getting a walkover in the first round. The duo defeated 59th-ranked and top seeded duo, Yang Pang and Sasha Shkorupeieva of Arkansas 8-6, in the final. On Saturday, Hartono and El Kamash took out the No. 2 seed from the University of Houston.
“This is a good start to the year,” head coach Mark Beyers said. “I am very proud of Arianne and Mai. It was Arianne’s first tournament and the first time for her and Mai to play together. They beat the No. 1 doubles teams from Kansas, Arkansas and Houston. The girl that Arianne beat in the singles is a really good player.
“It’s hard to have expectations for the first tournament of the season, because you just don’t know what is going to happen. But the girls responded well and got some good match play in. We are excited to come home with the doubles and singles titles. This is a great tournament and we had a lot of Ole Miss fans supporting us.”
The rest of the team was in Cary, North Carolina competing in the Duke Fab Four. The Rebels picked up 10 wins between seniors Erin Stephens and Iris Verboven, sophomore Zalina Khairudinova and freshman Natalie Suk.
Khairudinova and Suk advanced to the finals of the White Draw doubles with an 8-4 win over the Florida team of Brianna Morgan and Brooke Austin. In the final, just one break decided the match in favor of the nation’s third-ranked tandem of Monique Albuquerque and Clementina Riobueno (Miami), 8-5.
