d c 1

4B - Mond


ay, January 29, 2007 r It IVI i I I The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Lucky No. 12: Tennis teams score upsets

First-year coach breaks out big

Horns hooked by loose 'M'

By CHRIS MESZAROS
Daily Sports Writer
Saturday's challenge was nothing
new for Jenny Kuehn.
Displaced by Hurricane Katrina,
the graduate studentknew firsthand
what it takes to overcome adversity.
Kuehn rallied back to claim
an exciting win for the Michigan
women's tennis team at the Varsity
Tennis Center Saturday. After drop-
ping the first set of the No. 1 singles
match, Kuehn recovered and domi-
nated Vanderbilt's Amanda Taylor
in the final two sets (2-6, 6-1, 6-2).
Kuehnbattled back in the second
settakingallbutonegametoextend
the match into a third set. As the
momentum began to swing, Kuehn
capitalized and put the match away.
"We all know that Jenny is really

good," sophomore Chisako Sugi-
yama said. "We knew that she was
going to pull it out, and she played
really well and set the tone off really
well for our season."
Her win clinched a 4-3 victory
for the Wolverines over the 12th-
ranked Commodores, giving first-
year coach Amanda Augustus a win
in her dual-meet coaching debut and
the Wolverines an upset win in their
season opener.
Kuehn's showed both resilience
and agility as she won several
meticulously crafted points, much
to the chagrin of her opponent. The
crowd showed its appreciation after
she glided across court three times
before connecting on a crosscourt
shot that baffled Taylor.
As the crowd gathered around
Kuehn's court, the pressure began

to grow. The winner of her match
would determine the winner of
the meet. Both players realized the
urgency of their situation and the
match became a battle of wits.
"I saw that I would have the
clinching match," Kuehn said. "I
kept telling myself to focus on some-
thing else, which really helped."
Her arrival at Michigan is quite
unlikely. Kuehn, a Leipzig, Germany
native was enrolled at Tulane for her
first three years of eligibility before
the program was cancelled because
of the devastation of Hurricane
Katrina. Already graduated, Kuehn
looked to play one more year for a
school with a top accounting pro-
gram, which led her to Michigan.
"When I came to my recruiting
trip, I fell in love with Ann Arbor,"
Kuehn said. "I fell in love with the
--] winterano+to-team as-gret,-soT

By ANTHONY OLIVEIRA
Daily Sports Writer
For the past eight years, the
Michigan men's tennis team
couldn't beat a top-15 squad. But
after Saturday night, one thing
was clear.
2007 is a whole new year.
Coming out strong, the 32nd-
ranked Wolverines downed No.
12 Texas, a 2006 final-four team,
in convincing fashion, 5-2, in
front of a record crowd at the
Varsity Tennis Center.
While most spectators were
tuned into the No. 1 singles match
that featured senior Brian Hung
defeating Dimitar Kutrovsky (6-
4, 6-3), junior Matko Maravic
and sophomore Andrew Mazlin
turned in dominant performanc-
es of their own. They both won in
straight sets.
"(Matko) stepped it up and
played a very smart match,"
Michigan coach Bruce Berque
said. "He competed like a champ,
and he made a commitment to
himself and to his teammates that
he was going to just compete. He
definitely did that."
,Mazlin drew rave reviews
with two strong matches of his
own. Seeking help from coaches
during the week and warming
up before the team got out on
Saturday, Mazlin was mentally
prepared for the weekend. He
downed Longhorn sophomore
Jonah Kane-West in straight sets

(6-4, 6-2) and teamed up with
senior Ryan Heller to beat Bern-
hard Deussner and Josh Zavala,
8-5. Mazlin was the first off the
court in both singles and doubles,
as both matches ended quickly.
After a stellar showing against
Texas at the Miami Invitational,
Michigan was very loose going
into Saturday's matchup.
"All of us as a team had an out-
standing practice, really the best
practice I think we had," senior
Steve Peretz said. "We were really
enjoying it. Every single member
on the team was confident, play-
ing well, enjoying it and really
looking forward to the opportu-
nity like I've never seen before."
The Wolverines claimed all
their doubles matches, taking the
psychologically crucial point into
the locker room. The momentum
carried over into singles, where
five of six Wolverines took their
first set.
Peretz put on a good show,
taking the first set easily against
Deussner 6-1. But some late
struggles in the second set led to
a super-tiebreak. Peretz rallied
from being down 4-2 to win the
match 12-10.
Heller didn't have as much luck
in his super-tiebreak. Facing who
Berque called the Longhorns'
most talented player, Heller held
his own early against Miguel
Reyes Varela. But fatigue and a
hip injury led to Heller losing the
second-set tiebreak. Reyes Varela

struck early in the super-tiebreak
going up 9-2 and eventually won
10-7 despite a comeback attempt
by Heller.
The Wolverines still pulled out
the impressive victory over the
Longhorns, and Peretz knows
that this group is different from
previous Michigan teams.
"Our team really doesn't show
much weakness," Peretz said.
"A lot of our guys know we can
count on every single spot: 1-2-3
in doubles, 1-2-3-4-5-6 in singles
and everyone else. Everyone has
a great team effort. And the big-
gest difference this year over last
year is confidence. We're very
confident with our games."
Michigan's ranking is sure to
rise after the impressive win. The
Wolverines have not been ranked
in the top 25 since 2000. But they
still have other things in mind.
"We set our goals to have fun
and just enjoy every match we're
going to play," Maravic said. "I
think our hard work is going to
show in the end what we can do.
I don't really want to think about,
'We beat Texas. They're No. 12
in the country. We're going to
move in the rankings.' I think we
should just keep practicing hard.
It's a long season."
In the meantime, they'll be
enjoying this one.
"Our goals are very high," Per-
etz said. "We're far from satisfied
with this. But I have to say, it is
nice now."


winter and the team was
%-UHMIL~drigh awy."

SPRING BREAK
INFORMATION
800-488-8828
www.sandpiperbeacon.com
FREE SPRING BREAK
MODEL SEARCH CALENDAR
*VALID FOR FIRST 1000 RESERVATIONS.

11'

v*nann ~o

Kuehn and the rest of the Wol-
verines fed off a boisterous crowd,
the size of which Augustus was
pleased to see.
"Having all these people up
there supporting the team is great,"
Augustus said. "We're very fortu-
nate to have such supportive fans."
Sugiyama continued her recent
winning streak, dispatching her
opponent Taka Bertrand in straight
sets (6-0, 6-4) in the No. 2 singles
match. Her win gave hope to a
Michigan team that had lost in dou-
bles play, two matches to one, and
needed a victory to get back into
contention.
"This season, I wanted to focus
on getting a good start, and that
mentality has helped me gain con-
fidence in my matches," Sugiyama
said.
Sugiyama and senior Kara
Delicata also impressed in their
doubles play. The duo took a three-
game lead over Vanderbilt's Taylor
and Caroline Ferrell. But the Wol-
verines fought back against a fero-
cious rally to hold them off in 7-3
tiebreak win.
Trailing after losing two of three
matches in doubles play, Delica-
ta and freshman Tania Mahtani
responded by winning two singles
matches over Vanderbilt's Courtney
Ulery (6-3, 6-2) and Liberty Sveke
(6-2, 6-2), respectively.
The upset win against Vanderbilt
will act as a confidence builder for
the Wolverines, who now head out
west to take on Oregon and Wash-
ington. Having defeated a top-25
team, Michigan now knows that it
has the ability to compete with the
best.

0

WA MEW GYMNA'ST'iIC
Blue fills all-around
shoes in home win

Ic Irl
o a
Wt}YkS

2 4
(.734) 2 1, 6 A
S i s caa ;A i
WW W . 2 y 0 g a . c o m

By ALEX PROSPERI
Daily Sports Writer
The students were on their
feet Friday night at Crisler Arena,
jumping in circles to the tune of Sir
Mix-A-Lot's "Jump On It."
No,it wasn't aconcert. It was the
musical accompaniment to sopho-
more gymnast Tatjana Thuener-
Rego's floor routine. *
"That was kind of the point of
the music," Thuener-Rego said. "I
really wanted something that the
crowd could get into."
The energy from the crowd pro-
pelled Thuener-Rego to a 9.8 in
the floor exercise, her best perfor-
mance in that event this year. More
importantly, it was the final piece
of the puzzle to Thuener-Rego's
second career all-around title.
"The first time I'd ever won

the all around in a collegiate meet
was last year at our Denver meet,"
Thuener-Rego said. "So it's kind
of funny that the first time I took
the all around this year was at the
Denver meet."
Thuener-Rego's energy and
nearly perfect routines, added to
her individual titles in the uneven
bars and balance beam, made her
performance memorable for those
in attendance.
With Thuener-Rego's help,
Michigan outscored Denver
196.125 to 194.700 and improved
its all-time record against the Pio-
neers to 5-1.
It was also the Wolverines'high-
est point output of the season, not
to mention that the performance
increases the team's average score
and will most likely get them into
the top 10 of the GymInfo Top-25


poll.
"This is the best weekend we
have had by far," Michigan coach
Bev Plocki said.
But as well as the night conclud-
ed, it began just as poorly.
During warm-ups, freshman
all-around competitor Sarah Cur-
tis went down with an injury that
silenced the crowd. The undiag-
nosed injurymeant the Wolverines
had to scramble to fill her spots,
which they did flawlessly.
Thuener-Rego, who usually
doesn't compete in vault, scored a
9.850, which was the highest score
on the team. Senior Carol McNa-
mara, who hadn't competed on
bars since she was a sophomore,
scored a 9.725. Jaclyn Kramer also
stepped up for Curtis and compet-
ed in the balance beam, scoring a
9.7..
"Once again, the people that
stepped into lineups stepped in
and hit their routines," Plocki
said. "And I think that the way
this team reacted tonight tells me
a great deal about their strength
and character. Overall, I just
couldn't be more proud of this
team."
Strength and character will
be two vital factors to the Wol-
verine's success throughout the
rest of the season because the
team was already down two all-
around competitors before Cur-
tis's injury.
Two weeks ago, senior and
two-time All-American Lindsey
Bruck and freshman Jordan Sex-
ton both went down with season-
ending injuries.
"We have yet another bump
in the road," Thuener-Rego said.
"But this team never ceases to
amaze me at how we can bring
it together and step up when we
need to. It's an amazing feeling to
be on a team like this."
The two other all-around
competitors had excellent nights,
too.
Michigan gymnasts Nellie
Kippley (39.275) and Huneth
Lor (39.075) finished second and
third in the all-around, respec-
tively, both setting career highs.
After last weekends all-around
score of 37.550, Kippley stepped
up her performance against
Denver. She finished first in the
floor exercise and second behind
Thuener-Rego in both the uneven
bars and balance beam.
"What I learned from this
team tonight is that nothing is
going to make them give up,"
Plocki said. "And I think theyjust
really took the attitude that 'you
know what, we're just going to
keep going and were still capable
of doing this.' And that makes me
very excited about the rest of the
season."

0

Sample Roundtrip Airfares From Detroit to:
New York $151 Amsterdam $298
Philadelphia $151 London $302
Tallahassee $202 Paris $312
a abaeor.ls nive s e.cs a Ot t a to m 1yes
in Sud ent5n1esCom d

0
0