LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Florida Southern opened its final tournament of its fall season here Friday by winning all five of the matches they played on the opening day of the 2014 Grizzly Open hosted by Georgia Gwinnett College.
Senior Magda Riutort (Petra, Spain) and junior Miroslava Mensikova (Hranice, Czech Republic) won two doubles matches to move into Saturday evening's round of 16, while the tandem of freshmen Katie Stanford (Lake Worth, Fla.) and Cassie Eldredge (Peachtree City, Ga.) had a first round bye and earned a second round win to advanced to Saturday's round of 16. Ironically, if both of FSC's doubles teams win their round of 16 matches on Saturday at 7 p.m., they will play each other in the quarterfinals of the doubles bracket.
In Friday's action Riutort and Mensikova, who advanced to the finals of the doubles draw at this year's ITA South Regional Championships, opened doubles play with a 9-8 win over USC-Aiken's tandem of Nadine Tusiama and Victoria Jasko and then earned an 8-1 win in the round of 32 over Alabama-Huntsville's tandem of Cristina Cabanas and Abby Burks. The Moccasin duo, who are 6-1 in doubles during the fall campaign, will meet Barry's tandem of Ana Pain and Kimmy Twelker in the round of 16.
Stanford and Eldredge picked up an 8-1 win in the round of 32 over Point's duo of Haley Proctor and Victoria White and will now face Emory's tandem of Bea Rosen and Melissa Goodman in the round of 16 on Saturday evening.
Meanwhile, in the singles play, the Mocs picked up two wins in Flight C as freshman Shannon Griffin (Winter Haven, Fla.) opened with a first round win over UAH's Burks, 7-5, 7-5 and will now meet Berry's Kat Pugh in the round of 16 on Saturday morning at 8 a.m., while Eldredge picked up a 6-0, 6-0 win in the first round over Lewis' Jordan Styczen and will meet Alabama-Huntsville's Katie Bryant in a 12:30 p.m. round of 16 match on Saturday.
FSC's other singles player, Stanford had a first round bye on Friday and will meet West Georgia's Whitney Maples in an 8 a.m. round of 16 match on Saturday.
The Flight C singles quarterfinals are scheduled for Saturday at either 2 or 4 p.m., while the semifinals and finals are scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 19. In doubles, the round of 16 and quarterfinals are scheduled for Saturday, while the semifinals and finals are slated for Sunday, Oct. 19.
Click here for the complete draw and /results of 2014 Grizzly Open