SAN ANTONIO — UTSA's women’s tennis team will open its 2014 fall slate this weekend at the Marco & Co. Catering Islanders Open. The three-day tournament will open on Friday at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center in Corpus Christi.
Matches are scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on Friday and the tournament will run all day Saturday with finals at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
The Roadrunners will compete in singles and doubles matches against players from Incarnate Word, Lamar, Texas-Pan American, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and UT Arlington. The event is sanctioned by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) and results count toward individual ranking points in the ITA singles and doubles ranking system.
Ninth-year head coach Erin Scott welcomes back seven letterwinners from last year’s squad that won 11 matches.
Headlining the returnees are All-Conference USA performers Miriam Rosell Canudas and Jacobea Junger.
Rosell Canudas, a sophomore, earned second-team singles accolades after leading UTSA with an 18-4 record at the No. 2 singles position a year ago. The Barcelona, Spain, native won 13 of her final 14 outings of the season, including an 11-match winning streak from Feb. 16-April 6, In fact, she won 19 consecutive sets from Feb. 22-April 6.
Meanwhile, Junger landed on the third team after winning a dozen matches at the top position in the Roadrunners’ lineup. The junior Stuttgart, Germany, native had a season-long six-match winning streak from Feb. 23-April 3 and won all of her contests during that stretch in straight sets.
Rosell Canudas and Junger also were one of three duos that earned third-team honors in doubles. The pair registered a 12-5 mark at the squad's top position last season and had an 11-match winning streak from Feb. 8-April 3.
Also back for UTSA this season are seniors Irene Gandara Gonzalez and Daniela Garcia-Diaz, juniors Nicole Karaklis and Alena Shichkova and sophomore Lina Hallgren. The lone newcomer is Sonia Madroñal Medina, who is a freshman from Barcelona, Spain.