Cancini wins in Minnesota as Cyclone Tennis shows well
Maty Cancini returns a serve while her then-partner Sami Budai stands ready at the net. Budai and Cancini played first doubles against Oklahoma on April 21, 2017, at Forker Tennis Courts. First doubles went on to win 6-2 and was the sole winning doubles team for Iowa State.
September 23, 2019
The Cyclones opened up their tennis season with singles action on Friday. The team finished the day 5-2 at the Gopher Invitational at the Baseline Tennis Center in Minneapolis.
Highlighting the day for the Cyclones and earning victories were Maty Cancini, Christin Hsieh, Ting-Pei Chang, Chie Kezuka and Oumaima Aziz. In Draw A, Cancini won 2-0 (6-2, 6-0) over Drake’s Carmen Palumbo and advanced, while Hseih took care of business on the other half of the top bracket 2-0 (6-4, 6-1) over Iowa’s Cloe Ruette.
In Draw B, Chang defeated Mayya Perova of Milwaukee 2-0 (6-1, 6-3). In Draw C, Kezuka was victorious 2-1 (6-2, 5-7, 7-5) over Amano of North Dakota and Margarita Timakova fell to Bauers of Iowa 1-2 (6-7, 6-3, 6-2). In Draw D, Aziz took down Nikki Milner of Milwaukee 2-0 (6-3, 6-1) and in Draw E Karen Alvarez fell 1-2 (4-6, 6-2, 7-6) to Nicole Clarke of Milwaukee.
On Saturday, the Cyclones went 6-0 in doubles and sent Cancini (Draw A) and freshman Oumaima Aziz (Draw D) to the finals in singles. Cancini moved on to face Minnesota’s Tiffany Huber after winning 2-0 (6-4, 6-4) in the semifinals, while Aziz made it to the finals in Draw D.
Cancini and Chang defeated Northern Iowa and Minnesota in doubles play. Also in doubles, Hsieh and Kezuka defeated Drake and Minnesota while Aziz and Timakova finished unbeaten over North Dakota and Milwaukee.
To round out singles results, Tiffany Huber of Minnesota defeated Hsieh 2-0 (6-1, 6-0) in Draw A. In Draw B, Cammy Frei of Minnesota defeated Chang 2-0 (6-5, 6-4). In Draw C, Kezuka was defeated by Juliet Zhang of Minnesota 2-0 (6-3, 6-0) and Timakova was also defeated in 1-2 fashion (2-6, 6-3, 6-2). Finally, in Draw E, Emma Carr from UNI defeated Alvarez 2-0 (6-4, 6-3).
On Sunday, Cancini took home a championship. The preseason No. 99 player defeated Tiffany Huber of Minnesota 2-0 (6-2, 6-4) to claim the title. The other Cyclone in singles finals, Aziz, fell to Erika Dodridge of Iowa 0-2 (7-6, 6-3) and claimed runner-up in Draw D. In other singles action, Kezuka was defeated 0-2 (7-5, 6-1) by River Hart of Minnesota and received fourth place.
Also placing fourth was Christin Hsieh who lost to Tina Kreinis of Minnesota 0-2 (6-1, 6-1). Rounding out singles, Chang was defeated by Ekin Ercetin of Minnesota 0-2 (7-6, 6-4) and Timakova defeated Tiana Glazbrook of Green Bay 2-0 (6-3, 6-3). In doubles action, the Cyclones finished 3-2 on Sunday.
The three victories came from the respective duos of Cancini/Hsieh, Kezuka/Timakova and Aziz/Chang who defeated two Drake duos and an Iowa duo.
Cyclones delivered success in both areas, with both singles and doubles producing wins. Doubles began their play with a hot start and were able to carry it into the second day. The Cyclones also brought back place winners in singles and come back to Ames with some hardware. Iowa State returns to action from October 4-6 at the H-E-B Fall Invitational in Waco, Texas.
