SMC Tennis Maintains Momentum while heading into State Championships

The Santa Monica College women's tennis team is only days away from competing for the state title. Entering conference playoffs at the number three seed, behind Glendale and Santa Barbra respectively, Santa Monica, who was ranked 6-5 overall and 6-4 in the Western State Conference, found no difficulty in pirating the gold.

On April 10, just after receiving the Western State Conference Player of the Year award, Mayra Jovic competed for the women's singles title.

She went undefeated even through the championship round, as she beat Amy Shigenaga of Glendale, a team that the Corsairs were unable to defeat during the regular season.

And even after such individual feats, Jovic, nicknamed The Captain, went as far as to win the women's doubles title with Izabel Nazdracheva, winning every match in straight sets.

This year's California Community College Athletic Association championship rounds will be held at the 115th annual Ojai Tennis Tournament where legends such as Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras have competed over the last 50 years.

This year, Mayra Jovic and Izabel Nazdracheva hope to add their names to the list of winners in Ojai.

Jovic, as the number one seed from the south, earned a first round bye and will face the winner of the first round match between San Diego City College's Briana Hooks and City College of San Fransisco's Savannah Hayes.

Nazdracheva will have to compete in a play in match against Palomar College's Christina Nguyen. Should she get past Nguyen, De Anza College's Van Nguyen will be waiting for Nazdracheva in the second round. Looming later in Nazdracheva's bracket is the number one seed from the north Chieko Yamada of Shasta College.

In the double's bracket Jovic and Nazdracheva hold the number one seed in the south and will be joined by the teams of Shawntel Patterson and Sammy Xiao as well as Elin Nyberg and Lauren Voiers.

It will be interesting to see how the Corsairs as a team perform though, especially after a two-week resting period.

The blue and white won every team-match after a 5-day rest. However, a lack of depth caused them to have trouble in the second half of back to back matches, highlighting their lack of depth.

Will the pressure get to the girls as they revel in their successes, or will they continue to practice hard and sail forth?

Only time will tell.