Franco and Airpetian get on doubles roll at NY invitational

FLUSHING MEADOWS, NY – Three Lady Razorbacks finish consolation singles matches today in the final events at the 2006 Women’s College Tennis Invitational for the University of Arkansas women’s tennis team at the National Tennis Center.

“This has been some of our best tennis of the fall, and we are looking forward to a strong finish,” UA head coach Micheal Hegarty said. “This has been some great days of tennis. We’ve played a couple of tight matches, but overall this has been a great weekend.”

The highlight of the first days was the run to the quarterfinals of the top flight of doubles by the Lady’Back team of Mayori Franco and Nanar Airapetian.

Airapetian and Franco rolled through their first two matches in the A doubles, defeating Kristin Flatch and Sara Giles-Madden from West Point, 8-3, then Janet Kim and Jessie Rhee of Yale, 8-4, on Ashe Stadium Court to advance to the quarterfinals before falling to NC State’s Alejandra Guerra and Daria Petrovic, 9-7.

In singles, Franco used a straight set shutout to open the A flight singles with a 6-0, 6-0 decision over Kerry Snow of Dartmouth before falling in one of the longest matches of the opening day to Janet Kim of Yale. Franco took the first set in a tiebreaker before yielding the second and forcing a dramatic 10-8 superbreaker before falling, 6-7, 6-2, 10-8, into the consolation bracket. Franco advanced with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Jennifer Stevens of Virginia to today’s match.

In the B flight, Audry Bordeleau opened with a straight set 6-4, 6-2, win over Christine Alford of Yale before falling to Charlie Tansil in a supertiebreaker match in the round of 16, 7-5, 4-6, 10-7. Bordeleau closed with a 6-4, 6-3 loss to Preethi Mukudan of Harvard in the consolation round of 16.

Airapetian was seeded eighth in the C flight of singles, defeating Brett Finkelstein of Brown, 6-2, 7-5 before falling to Lindsey Nash of Boston College, 6-3, 6-1, in the round of 16. The freshman rallied to defeat Army’s Jessica Shurtz, 6-2, 6-0, to advance in the C flight consolation.