Women’s tennis looks to serve up wins


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The No. 4 women’s tennis team will continue their season with two matches at home over the weekend. They will face No. 18 Pepperdine on Friday and No. 47 Saint Mary Saturday.

The Women of Troy are looking to build on last week’s 4-3 win against UC Santa Barbara.

“We’ll have to relax and … play,” head coach Richard Gallien said. “Last match we came out of the blocks slowly.”

At doubles, No. 4 Giuliana Olmos and Gabby Smith are aiming to get their first win of the season under their belt, while freshman Jessica Failla and junior Zoe Katz are hoping to repeat their winning performance from last Wednesday, where they won four games in a row after being down 2-4 to win the only doubles match of the day for the Trojans.

In singles, the Women of Troy has five seeded players — No. 42 Giuliana Olmos, No. 48 Rianna Valdes, No. 49 Madison Westby, No. 76 Jessica Failla and No. 114 Zoe Katz. Smith and  sophomore Meredith Xepoleas also made their season debut last week at second and sixth singles respectively, with Xepoleas clinching the match in three sets.

“They are a very good team, probably the best in the past 16 years,” Gallien said of the Pepperdine team. “But our girls are keen. It’s going to be a challenge for everybody, but our girls are keen.”

The Waves have a record of 1-1. At singles, they will rely on three seeded players: freshman Luisa Stefani at No. 14 is the best ranked player, followed by freshman Dzina Milovanovic at No. 96 and sophomore Laura Gulbe at No. 102.

The Waves are going to try to keep their nearly undefeated record going on the doubles side. The Women of Troy have a 44-12 all-time record against Pepperdine. The last home meet finished 4-0 for in favor of USC.

The Women of Troy will take on No. 47 Saint Mary on Saturday. The Gaels are coming off of a 4-0 win against Cal State Northridge in the consolation match of the ITA Kick-Off weekend. They previously had lost 4-1 to Washington. Their key player is senior Jamie Pawid, currently the only one ranked nationally at No. 103. USC has an all-time record of 5-0 in previous encounters. The last meeting was last season, with the final score of 5-2 for the Women of Troy.

Matches begin at 1:00 p.m. on Friday and noon on Saturday at Marks Stadium.