Women's Tennis Opens fall season at Piedmont Invite

DEMOREST, Ga. - The Columbia College women's tennis team competed at their Fall season tournament over the past weekend down in North Georgia at the NCAA Div. III Piedmont Invitational.

The team came away with five individual wins on the week including two in singles and three in doubles.

Leading the women in singles was senior Helena Jokanovic as she went 2-1 in singles and undefeated in doubles going 3-0. In her first singles match on Friday at the top line, she defeated a Div. III Methodist University player 6-4, 6-0 before winning her next singles match later Friday evening against Div. III Maryville College (TN) 6-3, 6-0. Helena suffered her only singles defeat on Saturday falling to Piedmont 4-6, 4-6 in a closely contested bout.

In the doubles matches, Jokanovic first teamed up with junior Aniya Sims at the top line on Friday afternoon to defeat Piedmont 6-4. The Koala freshman pairing of Rachel Thompson and Natalia Diaz then fell 7-5 against the Lady Lions while the final Koala pairing of junior Joye Tate and sophomore Vienne Geren fell 7-5 as well.

Jokanovic then teamed up with freshman Natalia Diaz later Friday in doubles and went on to defeat Piedmont again 6-1. Unfortunately, the pairing of Thompson and Sims dropped a close 6-4 decision in doubles. Sims then dropped a tight singles match against Maryville 6-2, 7-5 Friday evening while Thompson fell 6-3, 6-2.

Finally during their last doubles matches on Saturday afternoon against Maryville, Jokanovic and Diaz then paired up again and defeated the Lady Scots 6-3 while Thompson and Sims lost 7-6.