USC
Notre Dame
Women's Tennis Earns 5-2 Win Over Irish
February 20, 2000 | Women's Tennis
Feb. 20, 2000
MADISON, Wis. -- The 13th-ranked USC women's tennis team (7-2, 2-1 Pac-10) defeated No. 17 Notre Dame, 5-2, late Saturday night in the consolation of the USTA/ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships in Madison, Wis. The Women of Troy finish with a 2-1 record at the 16-team event after defeating Tennessee in the first round and falling to Georgia in the quarterfinals.
Notre Dame used wins at the No. 1 and 2 doubles spots to take a 1-0 lead over the Trojans as the teams headed in to singles play.
Though the experimental format granted the doubles point to Notre Dame, USC was able to take advantage of the new format throughout the singles matches. The experimental dual match format consists of three eight-game pro-set doubles matches followed by six singles matches with a match tiebreaker (first to 10, win by two) to be played instead of a third set in singles. A team winning two doubles matches wins one point and wins two points for sweeping the doubles. If a match is tied 4-4 after singles, overtime is played - the same three doubles teams return to play match tiebreakers with the team that wins two of the three winning the match 5-4.
The Trojans won three singles matches in the match tiebreaker, including a 19-17 tiebreaker win by senior Kara Warkentin over Becky Varnum at No. 2 singles. It was the same story at the No. 4 and 6 singles positions, as Jacqui Boyd and Tiffany Brymer claimed 10-5 and 10-4 tie-breaking victories, respectively. USC's only loss came at No. 1 as Notre Dame's Michelle Dasso earned a 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5) victory over 38th-ranked Jewel Peterson.
Singles
(1) Michelle Dasso (ND) def. Jewel Peterson (USC) - 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5)
(2) Kara Warkentin (USC) def. Becky Varnum (ND) - 6-4, 3-6, 1-0 (19-17)
(3) Veronika Safarova (USC) def. Kelly Zalinski (ND) - 6-1, 6-1
(4) Jacqui Boyd (USC) def. Nina Vaughan (ND) - 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-5)
(5) Anita Loyola (USC) def. Lindsay Green (ND) - 7-5, 6-0
(6) Tiffany Brymer (USC) def. Kimberly Guy (ND) - 4-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-4)
Doubles
(1) Dasso/Varnum (ND) def. Brymer/Warkentin (USC) - 8-6
(2) Katie Cunha/Guy (ND) def. Loyola/Safarova (USC) - 9-7
(3) Boyd/Peterson (USC) def. Green/Zalinski (ND) - 9-8 (7-0)
