Four Canes Selected for NCAA Individual Championships
May 3, 2012
Singles and Doubles Fields l NCAA’s Championship Site
INDIANAPOLIS– University of Miami women’s tennis student athletes Gabriela Mejia, Anna Bartenstein, Melissa Bolivar and Liat Zimmerman have been selected to participate in the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships from May 23-28 in Athens, Ga.
The selections were made by the NCAA Division I Women’s Tennis Subcommittee and announced Wednesday evening on NCAA.com.
Bartenstein and Mejia make up two of the 64 individuals selected for singles play, while Bolivar and Zimmerman make up one of 32 doubles teams in the field. Each of the four Canes earned at-large bids into their respective fields.
Prior the singles and doubles championships, Mejia and Bartenstein will lead their team in the NCAA team championships. No. 10 seed Miami (18-4) is serving as one of 16 host schools for the first and second rounds that will be held the weekend of May 11-13. Regional champions will advance into Round of 16, which will be held from May 17-22 at Georgia’s Magill Tennis Complex, the same site as the singles and doubles tournaments.
Bartenstein and Mejia are currently ranked 16 and 25 respectively in the ITA’s national singles rankings. Bolivar and Zimmerman are ranked as the nation’s No. 14 doubles pair.
Bartenstein compiled a 15-5 record this spring with wins over five Top 50 opponents, including a 6-2, 6-4 victory over then 12th-ranked Kristi Boxx of Ole Miss in February. Serving as Miami’s No. 1 singles player in all but four matches, Bartenstein, a senior from Graz, Austria, enters the NCAA Championships having won four straight.
Against ranked opposition this season, Mejia is 5-2 and is tied for the team lead with 16 dual match victories. The senior from Cali, Colombia has lost only once in UM’s last eight matches and was named the ACC Player of the Week in March.
Zimmerman, a freshman, and Bolivar, a sophomore, teamed up for a 14-7 dual match record and have defeated four Top 25 teams this season, highlighted by an 8-4 victory over the ninth-ranked Georgia Tech duo of Jillian O’Neill and Alex Anghelescu in April.
This will mark Bartenstein’s second appearance in the singles tournament and the first for Mejia, Bolivar and Zimmerman.
