Doubles match 'a heartbreaker'

The women's tennis doubles team of junior Karie Schlukebir and sophomore Linda Tran lost a hard-fought battle against No. 6-seeded sophomore Liina Suurvarik and junior Alesia Mikalayeva of Illinois State 8-5 in the finals of the Region IV Championships Monday. \nIt was the first Hoosier doubles team that has reached the Region IV Finals since 1994. A win would have put the duo into the National Championships. \n"Monday's match was a heartbreaker," Tran said. "We had beat so many good teams to get to the finals. We played well today, but we weren't able to convert on break points."\nThe tournament used an exploratory scoring system called "no-add scoring." In this method, instead of playing a deuce point at the score of 40-40, the game ends at the next point. \n"We lost four of the five games that were break points," Schlukebir said. "It definitely hurt us. We could've been up 7-1."\nCoach Lin Loring agreed.\n"Those sudden death points were really the difference in the match," Loring said. "Karie and Linda served and returned well. The match really could have gone either way."\nThe loss is the duo's first of the season. They went 5-1 at the Regional Championships and are 11-1 overall. \nIn singles action, sophomore Martina Grim had a 7-5, 6-4 win against sophomore Caroline Lay of Michigan State. She then fell 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 in a tough second-round match to senior Toni Neykova of Iowa.\n"Overall, Martina probably had the best singles performance on the team," Loring said. "Her first victory came over the No. 1 girl from Michigan St., so that was a big win for Martina."\nIn other singles action, Schlukebir defeated sophomore Anabelle Espinosa of Marquette 7-5, 6-0 before falling to Mikalayeva 6-1, 6-2. Senior Amanda Field lost to sophomore Alicia Salas of Notre Dame 1-6, 6-2, 6-2. Freshman Inga Radel was forced to default during singles play due to an injured back.\nThe last fall competition for the Hoosiers will be the Notre Dame Invitational on Nov. 9-11.