Women’s Tennis Completes First Tourney of the Season

The Michigan State women’s tennis team enjoyed a successful weekend at the 25th annual Auto-Owners Insurance Spartan Invitational with 13 total victories on the first day and 12 on day two.

MSU hosted the University of Detroit-Mercy, Indiana-University Purdue-University Fort Wayne and Toledo at this year’s invitational.


IMG_1196Sophomore Athena Trouillot was dominant throughout the tournament, going undefeated in both singles and doubles matches. Despite cold and wet conditions early Saturday, which delayed the Invitational an hour, Trouillot defeated Ella Norgren of IPFW by a score of 6-2, 6-0 in the first round of singles matches.

“It is really important just to stay loose,” Trouillot said. “Because if you’re playing cold it’s really difficult to play, so extra warm up and moving your feet are the most important part.”

Fellow MSU sophomore Erin Faulkner also played well going 3-0 in singles matches and 2-1 in doubles. Faulkner showcased her stamina as both her singles matches on day one went all three sets, defeating Mayu Sato of IPFW and Anna Davydova of Detroit-Mercy.

Overall the Spartans won seven of 11 flights during the weekend including No. 1 singles, No. 2 singles, No. 3 singles, No. 5 singles, No. 6 singles, No. 3 doubles and No. 4 doubles.

IMG_1250“We are counting on our young squad,” MSU head coach Simone Jardim said. “So that is phenomenal to be able to come out on the first tournament and have two freshmen go undefeated and have our sophomores at (No. 1) and (No. 2) go undefeated.”

MSU will have a couple of weeks to prepare before they travel to Evanston, Ill., for the Wildcat Invite beginning Sept. 26.


Zachary Fanko is a multimedia journalist for Impact Sports.

Photos: Hannah McEnroe/Impact Sports