The Penn State women's tennis team proved this weekend why head coach Buffy Baker described the fall season as completely wide open, as the squad was split between the Cissy Leary Invitational in Philadelphia and the Maryland Invitational in College Park.
Different players continued to step up this weekend, as Penn State landed a second-place finish in the singles tournament at Maryland and had doubles teams in the quarterfinals and semifinals in Philadelphia.
Freshman Lindsay Downing advanced to the finals of Flight B at College Park before falling to Kristina Georgieva of American University. After playing a tough, three-set match in the first round, Downing cruised in straight sets in the quarterfinals and semifinals before falling to Georgieva, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, in the championship.
"Lindsay has been exciting to see," said Penn State women's assistant tennis coach Ben Gabler. "She has a good understanding of using the whole court and will definitely be an asset to the team this year."
Downing competed in Maryland with sophomore Sarah Spence, who lost her first-round match but bounced back and advanced to the finals of the consolation draw.
Meanwhile, the team continued to show that it can compete with the very best players in the nation, as the doubles combination of Leigh Ann Merryman and Maaria Husain reached the semifinals of the Cissy Leary and Meghan Marton and Judy Wang advanced to the quarters.
Husain and Merryman knocked off the No. 3 seed from Tulane in the second round, and beat Big Ten foe Ohio State in the quarters before falling to eventual champion Harvard in the semis.
"We've been playing a lot of matches, but we've done really well," Merryman said. "I think we played pretty relaxed."
Merryman and Husain have played together before, and Gabler says that they will likely be rewarded for their strong performance by getting to continue to play together.
"They have both done things over the summer to develop their doubles games," Gabler said. "They just did the basics better."
Marton and Wang also continued to play well together, as they built upon last weekend's second-place finish at the OSU/Prince Cup by knocking off two teams from Ohio State, before losing a tiebreak match to Ashley Hedberg and Eva Wang of Harvard, 8-7 (4).
The team continued to show streaks of positive play in singles competition, but struggled overall. Merryman and Husain both won their first-round matches before falling in the second round. Marton lost her first-round match, but bounced back to win her next four, reaching the finals of the consolation draw.
The Cissy Leary Invitational, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, featured 15 of the nation's top 100 players, as Penn State continued to compete at a high level against the best players in the country.
"It was a strong draw, but everyone competed well," Gabler said. "We're proud of the team and how they played."
