By The Long Beach State women’s tennis team rolled through the second annual Beach Tennis Fall Invitational with dominating wins throughout the weekend, including four championships.
Maeva Razakasoa, Karolina Rozenberg and Holly Reid won three of the four singles championships, and Rozenberg and Ebba Unden teamed up to win one of the two doubles championships at the tournament.
“We got a great group of girls this year, and I’m really excited about the season,” LBSU head coach Jenny Hilt-Costello said. “They are all working really hard, they are very eager and willing to listen to coaching.”
LBSU won 12 of its 14 matches on the first day of competition on Friday, going 7-1 in singles and 5-1 on doubles matches.
Unden, the reigning Big West Freshman Player of the Year, continued her stellar play on Saturday with two wins in her single matches.
Unden beat UC Irvine’s Ali Facey 6-4, 6-4 and followed up with a win against LBSU teammate Julie Gerard 6-4, 6-2.
Unden then faced another teammate in the final on Sunday, as she fell to Razakasoa 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in a grueling match that lasted two hours and 30 minutes in the midday heat.
Unden didn’t finish empty-handed, though, as she and Rozenberg defeated UC Irvine’s Ali Facey and Brooke Schweyer 8-1 in the Flight A doubles final.
LBSU pair Hayley Thompson and Laura Eales almost made it an all-49er doubles final, but they lost 8-5 in Saturday’s semifinal to Facey and Schweyer.
Reid, a freshman from England, made her home debut with a perfect 3-0 weekend including a 6-3, 6-4 win in the Flight D singles finals over UCI’s Andrea Duva.
“It is very comfortable playing at home and we have our boosters out here today as well, and that support means a lot to us,” Reid said. “I am doing what I have to do to win in a sense my game is not at its best but I am concentrating on what I am being taught in practice.”
Rozenberg was the final 49er to win a singles championship. She took down Reka Rohonyi of Loyola Marymount 6-3, 0-6, 6-0 to win the Flight C championship.
Thompson nearly made it a singles sweep for The Beach, but she couldn’t complete a comeback against LMU’s Miya Jin in a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 loss in the Flight B finals.
Thompson also fell just short in the Flight B doubles finals along with Eales, her partner. Thompson and Eales competed to the end with LMU’s combo of Rohonyi and Jin but ultimately lost 8-6.
The 49ers had the most successful tournament of any of the teams participating, which included UCI, LMU, Southern Utah, Cal State Fullerton, Portland State, Cal State Northridge and UC Riverside.
“I’m definitely happy with the girls and the way they’re performing, we are working on things out on the court,” said LBSU women’s tennis head coach Jenny Hilt-Costello. “Everybody is listening, everybody is executing the game plan and trying to do the things that we’ve been working on in practice and you got to try and put them into play in a tournament.”
Next up for The Beach is the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) West Regional, which will be played in San Diego. The tournament is the 49ers’ last of the fall season before they resume play with the Beach Classic in January.
The ITA West Regional will start Thursday and end on Saturday.
