Bartnik takes crown at USTA Collegiate Invitational

Freshman Nicole Bartnik continued her stellar play this fall by winning the USTA Collegiate Invitational A singles bracket, her first collegiate title. Under third-year head coach Ilene Weintraub, Bartnik continued the strong start to the season, coming off the finals of the Cissie Leary Invitational and a showing at the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships. Bartnik has established herself as a serious contender in the Wilson/ITA Regional Championships, which are scheduled to begin Oct. 23 at Yale.

The USTA Collegiate Invitational is a tournament that features the best singles and doubles players from all across the East Coast, placed into a number of different draws for singles and doubles. Bartnik was the lone Lion representative in the top draw, which featured the top 16 singles players. Bartnik, unseeded, took out Elmine Botes from Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round, 6-0, 6-2. In the second round, Bartnik defeated Kristin Norton from Harvard, who had taken out No. 1 seed Bianca Aboubakare in the first round, 6-3, 6-0.

Bartnik continued her spectacular play, defeating No. 4 seed Amy Zhang from Rutgers, 6-0, 6-4 to reach the finals without dropping a set. In the finals, she face off against Sandhya Nagaraj from North Carolina State University. In a match with plenty of twists and turns, Bartnik won in three sets. She lost the first set 6-0 but rebounded to win the next two, 6-3, 6-0.

Bartnik also teamed up with junior Natasha Makarova to compete in the top doubles draw. The duo, which competed at the pre-qualifying doubles draw at the All-American Championships, was defeated in the first round by a team from Yale, 8-5, despite being the No. 4 seed.

In the second doubles flight, freshman Chelsea Davis and senior Carling Donovan lost to the No. 3 seed from Princeton, 8-1, and lost in consolation play to a duo from Long Island University, 8-5.

In the C doubles flight, junior Natalia Christenson and sophomore Eliza Matache lost to the top seed from Brown, 8-4. The duo also lost their consolation match to a team from Harvard. The Lions’ final doubles entrants were freshmen Katarina Kovacevic and Diana Shapoval, who lost to a team from Syracuse in the first round.

Makarova represented the Lions in the B singles draw and was beaten by Christina Ordway from Cornell, 6-1, 6-3. Makarova rebounded in the consolation draw, defeating Ira Alexsona from St. John’s in three sets, 2-6, 6-3, (10-6).

Matache was in the C singles draw and beat her first opponent from UNC Greensboro in straight sets before falling to Adi Petrova from Buffalo, 6-0, 6-1. Donovan, the Lions’ lone senior entrant in the tournament, won a tight opening match in the D singles draw against Belfin Sunbul from Seton Hall, 6-3, 2-6, (10-7) but was upended by the No. 2 seed from Dartmouth in the next round.

Davis won her opening-round match in the F bracket in straight sets but was beaten by Jess Ahn from Army, 7-5, 6-3. Both Shapoval and Kovacevic lost in the first round of the“G singles flight.

The Lions will next be in action on Tuesday when they host Rutgers in a scrimmage at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center. The match is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.