Jan. 26, 2012
University Park, Pa. -
The Penn State women's tennis team (1-2, 0-0) welcomes the Pittsburgh Panthers (0-0, 0-0) to the Indoor Tennis Center this weekend. The Nittany Lions look to continue their success on their home court when they take on the Panthers on Sunday at 1 p.m.
Penn State is coming off an impressive victory against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in which it beat the Retrievers, 7-0, to earn its first victory of the season. The Nittany Lions swept the Retrievers in all six singles matches and claimed two doubles victories to earn the shut out.
No. 96 Petra Januskova (Ottawa, Canda) continued her success this season by dominating No. 111 Kim Berghaus, 6-1, 6-0, to improve her singles record to 3-0 this season. The junior has not lost a one singles set all season. Chelsea Utting (Peachtree City, Ga.) and Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) also picked up big singles wins for the Nittany Lions. Other Nittany Lions earning singles points for Penn State were Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada), Fernanda Perrotta (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Nina Sertic (Zagrab, Croatia).
In doubles play, Utting/Sandor dominated the duo of Isabel Aldunate and Heidi Danielsson, 8-1. Bedard/Perrotta also picked up a win against Shalini Sahoo and Josefin Stange-Jonsson, 8-3, to earn the doubles point for the Nittany Lions.
Penn State has never lost to Pittsburgh, boasting a 15-0 all-time record. Last season, the Nittany Lions earned their first victory of the season against the Panthers, dominating Pittsburgh, 6-1. The Panthers compete in the Big East conference and tallied a 8-12 record in the 2010-11 campaign.
Pittsburgh is led by Head Coach George Dieffenback, who is in his 27th season at the helm of the Panthers and his 33rd overall at Pittsburgh. The Panthers look to two sophomores to lead their team, Jocelyn Lu and Kimmy Borza. Lu amassed 20 singles wins last season as a freshman and Borza won the Flight C title at the Martha Thorn Invitational this fall.
The Nittany Lions continue their homestand when they host Big Ten rival Ohio State, Tues., Feb. 7, at 3 p.m. After that, Penn State will travel to Richmond, Va. to take on Virginia Commonwealth on Sun., Feb. 12, at 11 a.m.
