Baklini Earns Title on Final Day of GCU Invite

Thursday, November 5

Phoenix, Ariz.

All Day

Grand Canyon

GCU Invite

Photo by: Darryl Webb

11/8/2015 4:35:00 PM | Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis

PHOENIX – The Grand Canyon University men's and women's tennis teams wrapped up their fall slate today at Paseo Racquet Center to close out their fall invite.

Junior Susan Baklini had a straight sets victory (6-4, 6-4) in the second flight's singles draws over Abilene Christian's Kaysie Hermsdorf to win the championship match.

"It's always nice when we can earn a title in our own event," said head coach Greg Prudhomme. "Susie did a great job staying mentally tough in her win today. Both sets could have gone either direction but she stayed tough at the critical moments to get the first place."

Competing in the second flight's championship match for the men was junior Adrian Legarreta, who faced a long three-set match against Justin Agbayan from UC Irvine. Legarreta fell short in the match 6-4,3-6,6-3.

"Adrian put up a good fight as well to get the second set after falling down a set in his final," continued Prudhomme. "He was close to getting that final–only a few points made the difference in the last set."

"We had a couple of other third place finishes on the women's flights with GCU players battling it out with their teammates which is always an extra mental test for the players," said Prudhomme.

Tatum Prudhomme and Alexandra Petrzalkova faced off against each other for third place in the first flight draws. Prudhomme won the match in three sets. Petrzalkova won the opening set 6-2, but Prudhomme came back to win the next two 6-2, 6-1.

In the second flight, Lana Macukat and Lana Rinaldi also competed for third place in a three-set match. Macukat picked up the first set 6-3, but Rinaldi answered in the second with a 6-3 win. Macukat finished off the match with a 7-5 victory.

"This was a great finish to a number of strong fall finishes for the teams," concluded Prudhomme. "We'll take what we learned from the fall and apply it to our last couple of weeks of practice to be ready for January."