Feb. 26, 2005

The University of Illinois women's tennis team ended its Pacific Northwest trip with a 6-1 loss to No. 8 Washington Saturday afternoon in Seattle.

The Illini (6-5) won two out of three doubles matches to gain an early 1-0 advantage; afterward Head Coach Sujay Lama was particularly pleased with his No. 3 duo.

"I thought we got off to a great start. We played really, really well in doubles, especially Anastasia (Sokolova) and Momei (Qu)."

Qu also lost a hard-fought singles decision to 37th-ranked Dinka Hadzic, while Sokolova struggled against the Huskies' fifth singles player, freshman Tara Simpson.

Senior Cyntha Goulet gritted out a win last weekend against Colorado but could not replicate the performance this weekend against only the second top-15 player she has faced. Instead, Washington's No. 1 singles player, fifth-ranked Dea Sumantri, snapped her UI counterpart Goulet's 12-match win-streak with a 6-3, 6-4 defeat. Goulet, who came in ranked No. 36 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, drops to 18-5 this season.

Lama recognized a fine effort against a top-10 team but says his team needs to strive for better results.

"I was happy with the way we competed in singles. We had opportunities in five of the six matches. I'm glad we competed very well, but I`m disappointed we could not capitalize."

Despite today's outcome, the UI mentor remains optimistic heading into next weekend's home match.

"We made some improvements since the last match. Hopefully it will give us a little bit more confidence going into the first Big Ten match against (No. 40) Purdue next weekend," Lama said.

Saturday's Results

at No. 8 Washington 6, No. 45 Illinois 1

Doubles

1 Dinka Hadzic/Dea Sumantri (UW) def. Cynthya Goulet/ Emily Wang (Ill), 8-5 2 No. 58 Macall Harkins/Brianna Knue (Ill) def. Mugette Ahn/Tara Simpson (UW), 8-3 3 Momei Qu/Anastasia Sokolova (Ill) def. Saskia Nauenberg/Stephanie Svanfeldt (UW), 8-3

Singles 1 No. 5 Dea Sumantri (UW) def. No. 36 Cynthya Goulet (ILL), 6-3, 6-4 2 Mugette Ahn(UW) def. Macall Harkins (ILL), 6-1, 7-6 3 No. 37 Dinka Hadzic (UW) def. Momei Qu (ILL), 7-5, 6-3 4 Saskia Nauenberg (UW) def. Brianna Knue (ILL), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 5 Tara Simpson (UW) def. Anastasia Sokolova (ILL), 6-1, 6-1 6 Allison Rainey (UW) def. Pavlina Akritas (ILL), 6-1, 2-6, 6-3