Saiontz wins in Flushing

Freshman tennis player Melissa Saiontz doesn't have many collegiate matches under her belt, but that didn't stop her from winning the "A" singles championship in her third tournament since matriculating at Princeton.

At the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center Invitational this past weekend, Saiontz proved that she has been able to adjust to the intensity of college play and will be a force to contend with over the next four years.

Match play began on Saturday at the Flushing, N.Y., tennis center. Saiontz breezed through her first two matches in the "A" singles flight, winning them both in straight-sets. She dropped only two games in her first two matches.

"She is very focused on her singles," senior co-captian Darcy Robertson said.

Two matches against Penn and Texas A&M on Sunday stood between Saiontz and the finals on Monday morning, and she dispatched the competition in typical straight-set fashion.

Saiontz finished up the tournament early Monday morning, claiming victory over her South Carolina opponent, Ann Zubori, 6-4, 6-3. This kind of result hasn't been seen from a Princetonian since the fall of 1999 when Kavitha Krishnamurthy '03 won three "A" bracket singles events in her freshman year.

Though freshmen don't usually find themselves at the head of the pack so early in their career, good things were expected of Saiontz as she was the highest-ranked American recruit to make the jump into collegiate tennis in 2006.

"She was number two in the country coming into college," Robertson said. "We expected her to do as well as she did."

Besides Saiontz's success this weekend, the Tigers were a dominant force at the tournament in all four brackets. Princeton played in both doubles and singles matches against the 20 teams that participated in the event.

"Everyone got a lot of play," Robertson said. "Overall it was a good weekend. We played seven matches in two days and got a lot of points."

Two pairs reach semis

Two doubles teams in the "B" flight advanced to the Sunday semifinals round, winning their first three matches, but failed to make it to the finals. Senior Laura Trimble teamed up with sophomore Kelly Stewart and defeated teams from Brown, St. John's and Dartmouth before falling to Penn on Sunday afternoon. The senior tandem of Robertson and Joanna Roth took down teams from Brown, Syracuse and North Carolina. They had good momentum going into the semis, but it was not enough to get past Duke and into the final.

"It was super windy the first day," Robertson said. "But it was good for us — we got to the semis of our doubles round."

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On the singles side, junior co-captain Ivana King won her first-round match in the "A" singles flight over Army but was defeated in the Round of 16 by Zubori, who went on to place second. In the "C" singles division, Trimble also won her first round match over Penn State.

Not only were the Tigers excited about their wins this weekend, but playing on the courts used for the U.S. Open was a great experience for them.

"Joanna [Roth] and I got to play our semis on the Arthur Ashe Stadium Court, so that was worth the whole weekend," Robertson said. "I mean how many people get to play there? It was so cool, we were like, 'Federer sat in this chair.' "

The Tigers will be hosting rivals Penn, UVa. and Columbia at the Princeton Classic in two weekends.

"So far it's been a very profitable fall due to our tournament schedule," Robertson said. "We have gotten a lot of sets under our belts. We're feeling very good about our team thus far."