Perez-Somarriba Cruises in NCAA Singles Championship Opener
By Alex Schwartz
HurricaneSports.com
NCAA Singles Bracket | Match Result | Spring Stats | Match Highlights
ORLANDO, Fla. – Estela Perez-Somarriba of the University of Miami women’s tennis team started her NCAA Singles Championship run in dominant fashion Monday evening.
Top-ranked and top-seeded Perez-Somarriba tallied an impressive 6-1, 6-0 triumph over No. 36 Andie Daniell of Alabama at the USTA National Campus. Up next for the Madrid native is a Round of 32 matchup against Katya Townsend of Texas A&M Tuesday at a to-be-determined time.
“Stela was doing a good job of taking advantage of balls that were not penetrating, balls that were sitting in no-man’s land. She was able to step forward and play her game,” Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews said. “I thought she served really well. I thought she played the beginning of the match really well. She did what Stela does; she’s relentless. She doesn’t give you any free points. I just think she played her style of tennis today [in the] first round to open the tournament.”
Perez-Somarriba won each of the first nine games of the match, rolling to a commanding 6-0, 3-0 lead. The first two games went to deuce, but she did not concede three points in any of the next seven.
Daniell, a First Team All-SEC performer, got on the board after the changeover, but Perez-Somarriba resumed her strong play with three consecutive wins to earn the 6-1, 6-0 victory.
The junior from Madrid dropped three-plus points in just five of the 13 games and lost just one game point in the entire match.
“She just does what she does to get up in the games. She’s consistent,” Yaroshuk-Tews said of the way Perez-Somarriba closed out games. “She keeps coming at you, she doesn’t give you any free points. You throw her a short ball, you’re going to pay for it. That’s Stela’s style of tennis and it’s very disciplined. It’s very thorough from beginning to end, so it’s no surprise that when she gets up, 40-30, or when she gets up, 40-15, she takes care of business because she typically takes care of business to get there.”
With the victory over Daniell, Perez-Somarriba becomes the fifth player in program history with at least seven NCAA Singles Championship decisions in her career.
In addition, she improves to 38-5 in 2018-19, becoming the second Hurricane to log multiple 38-win campaigns, joining Sinead Lohan. Perez-Somarriba also now owns a 111-20 career record in singles, good for sole possession of fifth place on the program’s all-time wins list.
For more information on the NCAA championships, including schedules, brackets and live stats, visit the tournament homepage HERE.
To keep up with the University of Miami women’s tennis team on social media, follow @CanesWTennis on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
MONDAY RESULT
NCAA Singles Championship First Round
No. 1 [1] Estela Perez-Somarriba (UM) def. No. 36 Andie Daniell (AL), 6-0, 6-1
TUESDAY SCHEDULE
NCAA Singles Championship Second Round
Time TBD: No. 1 [1] Estela Perez-Somarriba (UM) vs. No. 52 Katya Townsend (TAM)
NCAA Doubles Championship First Round
Time TBD: No. 13 Daevenia Achong/Daniella Roldan (UM) vs. No. 14 Martina Okalova/Vera Ploner (TUL)
