Results
 
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University women's tennis had a stellar showing on day one of the 2022 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Atlantic Region Championships at the Burt Reese Tennis Center on the campus of Bloomsburg University.
 
Highlights from day one of the individual tournament included all four of The Rock's seeded entries in the singles championship tournament advancing to the second round in addition to the duo of Gabriela del Val del Toro and Nuria Martin Lopez moving on to the quarterfinals of the doubles tournament.
 
Friday's competition began with the first two rounds of the doubles championship in which The Rock had three teams competing.
 
del Val del Toro and Martin Lopez made it through the first round when they upended Charleston's Riva Hondiashvilli and Sara Martinez, 7-5. Hondiashvilli and Martinez entered the tournament as the seventh-seeded double team.
 
Martin Lopez and del Val del Toro then faced Bloomsburg's Alexis Quackenbush and Jennifer McDonald. Despite Quackenbush and McDonald having the home court advantage, The Rock's veteran pairing was able to punch its ticket to the quarterfinals by way of another 7-5 victory.
 
The two victories set up a quarterfinal match for Martin Lopez and del Val del Toro against Indiana's Karolin Kirchtag and Natalie Kmoskova on Saturday. Kirchtag and Kmoskova are the second-seeded team in the tournament.
 
The duo of Teddi Isherwood and Georgie Lancaster lost to Charleston's top-seeded pairing of Filippa Larsson and Prinkle Singh, 6-1. Tina Slovak and Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez were also narrowly edged by Maria Fonseca and Ainara Pastor of Fairmont State, 6-4.
 
Following the opening two rounds of the doubles bracket, the singles tournament began with Zoe Heed being the first SRU representative to record a result via a first-round victory over Tori Alexander of West Chester.
 
Heed earned a 6-3 win in the opening set and was leading 1-0 in the second before Alexander retired from the contest due to injury. Heed will meet the tournament's top seed – Kirchtag – in the Round of 32 on Saturday.
 
Slovak, the Atlantic Region's fifth seed, followed Heed's lead by next recording the first win of her collegiate career when she downed Cayley Symons of West Virginia Wesleyan 6-3, 6-3. Slovak squares off against Hondiashvilli in the second round on Saturday.
 
Fresh off her doubles win, Martin Lopez rallied to stay perfect on the day by besting West Liberty's Nathalia Valencia 4-6, 6-1, 10-6. The 12th-seeded Martin Lopez now turns her sights to Salem's Ana Kunic in the Round of 32.
 
As the 10th seed in the singles bracket, del Val del Toro avoided falling victim to an upset with sound 6-2, 6-1 win against fellow Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division athlete Valentine Budin of Mercyhurst. del Val del Toro continues her championship hopes Saturday against Charleston's Alyssa Cameron.
 
Gonzalez Sanchez, the 15th seed, further increased Slippery Rock's strong singles showing by earning a 6-3, 6-4 victory in her first-round match against Rafaella Negrao De Almeida (Edinboro) to set up a second-round contest against Gemma Cliffe of West Liberty
 
The remainder of matches on day one of the regional championships involving SRU athletes included Isherwood falling in the first round to No. 16 Joanna Stralka (6-2, 6-2) and Lancaster dropping a 6-3, 6-0 decision to sixth-seeded Kmoskova.
 
The 2022 ITA Atlantic Region championships resumes 9 a.m. Saturday with the doubles quarterfinal round followed at 10 a.m. by the singles bracket Round of 32.




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