 |
Rookie leads
Lasers to win |
[July 9, 2006] Despite battling jet lag and a recent illness, Springfield Lasers rookie Victoria Azarenka put on arguably the team’s most dominating performance Saturday night.
Azarenka, a 16-year-old from Minsk, Belarus, easily beat Houston’s Ahsha Rolle 5-1 to lock up a 23-15 Springfield victory over the visiting Wranglers at Cooper Tennis Complex.
“I flew from Belarus (Friday) and spent the night in Chicago,” said Azarenka. “I got here (Saturday) and I was so tired that I was almost falling asleep before my match.”
Azarenka’s fatigue showed in the night’s fourth event – women’s doubles - where she and partner Andreea Vanc lost 5-3.
“I wasn’t really there in the beginning,” Azarenka said. “In the doubles I couldn’t get a first serve in at all, and that’s pretty hard on your partner when you can’t serve.
The Lasers 2-0 will go to Houston today for a 7 p.m. rematch.
“This is probably the best team we’ve had here in a long, long,” Lasers coach Trevor Kronemann said. “We’ve already got a lot of team unity and we don’t really have a weak set out there.”
Vanc and Alex Vlaski opened the match with 5-4 (5-4 tiebreaker) win in mixed double, then Vlaski and Nick Monroe followed with a 5-3 win in men’s doubles.
Monroe then beat Jan-Michael Gambill 5-2 in the men’s singles.
“It’s so much fun playing with Nick,” said Vlaski. “We support each other after every point and we play with a lot of energy.
“I was a little nervous about how we would play as a team, but now I don’t see a reason why we can’t beat everybody – let’s keep it going.