Fueled by passion, the tennisters of rivals De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University took to the hard courts of the Olivarez Sports Center to officially start the women’s division of the UAAP Season 77 Tennis Championship.
Hungry to claim their first win of the season, both teams fought hard but at the end of the day, the Taft-based squadron emerged as the victors as they plowed past their rivals with a 4-1 domination.
Starting the assault was none other than Marinel Rudas of the DLSU Lady Tennisters who quickly dispatched her opponent, Jana Exconde, as she smashed her way to 6-0, 6-0 only to be followed by Jenni Dizon and Rachelle de Guzman who both also demolished their opponents with 6-0, 6-1 and 6-0, 6-0 victories against ADMU’s Samantha Martin and Kathleen Espedido respectively.
The doubles matches started in similar fashion as DLSU’s duo of Nikki Arandia and Princess Castillo dominated the duo of Sampatan and Lagman with a 6-1, 6-1 victory. Sadly for La Salle, the victories ended there as they were denied a 5-0 sweep with the defeat of the Luis-Palasan tandem at the hands of Ateneo’s Hernandez and Olivarez who won 6-1, 4-6, 6-1.