Mountain West Conference Individuals Competing in NCAA Women's Tennis Singles and Doubles

UNLV's Malec Battles To All-America Status; Utah's Payne-Dorney Falls

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May 24, 2000

Colorado Springs, Colo. ­ The individual portion of the 2000 NCAA Division I Women¹s Tennis Championship hosted by the University of Pepperdine at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center in Malibu, Calif., continued with one Mountain West Conference singles player advancing through the second day.

In late first round action of the 64-player singles and 32-team doubles competitions on Monday. No. 95-ranked Eline Chiew from BYU became the second Mtn. West player eliminated when she fell to Ester Knox from team champion Georgia (6-3, 6-4). Earlier in the day, New Mexico¹s Ana Friganovic suffered a 6-4, 6-1 loss to Ivona Mihailova of Mississippi. The conference also saw two players claim first round victories on Monday as UNLV¹s No. 29-ranked Katarina Malec came through with a solid 6-0, 6-1 win over USC¹s Veronika Safarova in her opening match. Utah¹s No. 59-ranked Megan Payne-Dorny battled back to upset the tournament¹s No. 2-seed Janet Walker of Texas (3-6, 6-2, 6-3).

The lone Mtn. West representative in women¹s doubles action, UNLV¹s No. 27-ranked duo of Malec and Marianne Bakken overcame a first-set loss to defeat the team of Ashleigh Dolman and Maria Galoustova of Oklahoma State (0-6, 7-5, 6-2) in Monday evening¹s first round. The Rebel duo fell to Cal¹s team of Claire Curran and Amy Jensen (6-3, 3-6, 6-0) in the second round.

Malec played her way into All-America status by enduring a four-hour rain delay to defeat Camina Giraldo of Clemson 4-6, 6-2, 6-1. With the win Malec became only the second All-American in UNLV history and the first to earn the honor by reaching the round of 16 at the NCAA Championship.

In second-round action, Payne-Dorney fell to Florida¹s Jessica Lehnhoff (7-5, 7-5), leaving Malec as the lone Mtn. West representative entering the third day of play.

You can follow the complete results on the official NCAA website at NCAAChampionships.com or the get live scoring updates on the official Pepperdine website (arachnid.pepperdine.edu/athletics).