Scott takes Flight E title in tiebreak

Call it what you like: breakout performance, brilliant tennis, sheer luck. Junior Kristen Scott could not be happier with her performance last weekend at the USTA Women's Collegiate Invitational tournament at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., where she won the Flight E singles draw on Monday.

The road to the finals was not easy in this tournament, which attracted top-ranked female players from across the country, but you probably wouldn't know that from looking at the match results. In the first round, Scott cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Columbia's Natalia Christenson before taking out Army's Jurelle Mendoza 6-3, 6-2.

In the finals she faced her toughest challenge of the tournament, Kelly Kirkpatrick of Brown. After losing a close tiebreak and dropping the first set 6-7, Scott rallied to win the second 6-3 and force a 10-point tiebreak for the third and decisive set.

"In the 10-point tiebreaker I was down [9-10] at one point, [giving her] set point," Scott said. "I managed to hit a backhand winner down the line to tie the score at 10-10."

Scott took the next two points to close out the tiebreak and match at 6-7, 6-3, 12-10.

In the A flight of the draw, sixth-seeded senior Ivana King fought her way to the quarterfinals, defeating Leyla Morzan of Penn State 7-5, 6-1 before moving onto Boston University's Francine Wu, who retired at 5-3 in the first set due to an injury.

In the quarterfinals, King ran into Ekaterina Burduli of Washington State, who proved too much to handle. Though she was handed a disappointing 6-2, 6-1 defeat, King learned a valuable lesson from the match.

"I realized I was holding back. I lost all the crucial points ... and didn't take advantage of certain opportunities," King said. "I'm confident in knowing that I did everything I had to do [to win my other matches, however]."

The sophomore duo of Blakely Ashley and Sarah Huah made an impressive run in the doubles draw, defeating the team of Stephanie Zilberman and Lauren Shearer of Columbia 8-3, Diana Crutie and Shayna Miller of Cornell 9-7 and NC State's Lenka Hojckova and Julia Roach 8-2. The two then fell to the Texas A&M team of Anna Blagodarova and Michelle Simmons, the eventual winners of the doubles flight, 8-1.

In the second round, the same team from Texas handed the Princeton squad of King and junior Kelly Stewart, who had never played together, an 8-0 defeat. In the first round, King and Stewart had teamed up for an impressive 8-3 victory over No. 8 seed Lauren Cash and Alina Sullivan of Boston College.

In all, the Tigers made an impressive showing, winning 18 of 28 matches over the weekend.

"I was extremely happy with our team's showing this past weekend," Scott said. "I think overall we won some big [matches] over Ivy rivals Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. I believe our team's energy and enthusiasm over the course of the weekend, especially in doubles, was a huge factor for our success."

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King was even more optimistic about her team's outlook this season.

"Our team is stronger and deeper than my freshman and sophomore years," King said. "Last year, I was surprised we weren't the number one team in the Ivy League. This year, I would be even more surprised if we don't come out on top. Last year, our goal was to take the Ivy League; this year it's beyond that ... now it's to go to the NCAA finals tournament in Tulsa, [Okla.]"