Blue Raiders Open Fall Season at Ole Miss

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Head coach Alison Ojeda and the Middle Tennessee women's tennis team begins its fall season this weekend at the 4th Annual Ole Miss Fall Classic at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center in Oxford, Miss. The Blue Raiders return five letterwinners to this year's club and have added a pair of new players. Junior Ann-Kristin Siljestrom and sophomore Pooja Kommireddi combined for 45 singles victories last season and will lead the squad into its fall slate. The field includes five Sun Belt teams, including Arkansas-Little Rock, Louisiana-Lafayette, South Alabama, Troy and the Blue Raiders. Other participating teams include host Ole Miss as well as Arkansas, Georgia, Murray State, North Florida, Southern Illinois and Southern Miss. Ojeda, entering her second season as head coach at Middle Tennessee, said this year is much different because her players have a much better understanding of their individual game entering each match. "It's a much different expectation this year, not necessarily in results, but in the way the players play and prepare for each match and their attention to details during each match," Ojeda said. "Our girls worked very hard all of last year and we should reap the benefits of all that hard work this year." Ojeda says the strong field will allow her team as well as coaches to get a handle on where players need to improve in the coming weeks. "This is a good tournament and should give us a head start on getting a read of each player's improvements and aspects they need to work on this fall," she said. "Pooja and Ann-Kristin probably have bigger expectations this year because Ann-Kristin has played well for two years and Pooja played incredibly well last year." Others in this week's lineup include senior Hala Sufi, a transfer from Purdue, junior Claudia Szabo, sophomores Marlene Chemin and Elvira Yusupova and freshman Stephanie Parkison. Play begins Friday at 9 a.m. Saturday's action also begins at 9 a.m., with Sunday's finals to start at 10:30 a.m. The tournament will include five flights of singles and two flights of doubles. Full results from the tournament may be found at olemisssports.com.

Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Marlene Chemin

Pooja Kommireddi

Stephanie Parkison

Ann-Kristin Siljestrom

Claudia Szabo

Elvira Yusupova

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