By the end of a seemingly nonstop weekend of tennis, the courts inside the Pizzitola Center were painted with yellow fuzz. The three-day Brown Invitational lasted over 24 hours, featured four women's tennis teams and provided hundreds of tennis balls that were waiting to be smashed.
Bruno kicked off its fall season with the four-team tournament, which featured Boston, Rutgers and Syracuse universities. Although there are no team scores kept for fall matches, win-loss records count for individual players.
With A, B and C brackets in singles and A and B brackets in doubles, every player got the opportunity to play, although the tournament was moved indoors after Tropical Storm Kyle moved in. Veteran players and newcomers from the talented freshman class found success on the courts.
Coming from strong doubles backgrounds, Sara Mansur '09 and Carissa Aboubakare '12 teamed up to win the A doubles championship. Mansur was part of a team that was named All-Ivy Honorable Mention two years ago, while Aboubakare and her sister Bianca Aboubakare '11 were ranked as high as No. 2 in the country as juniors two years ago. (The older Aboubakare did not compete in the invitational because she was playing in an All-American qualifying tournament in California.)
In the doubles pro sets, Mansur and the younger Aboubakare cruised to an 8-1 victory over BU and battled past Rutgers, 9-7. They then faced a Syracuse team in the finals that had been more than a little vocal during the weekend's competition.
In an intense match that featured several shots at people's heads, Mansur and Aboubakare had to battle back from a 6-4 deficit. Finally, the duo was able to "get into a rhythm," Mansur said, mastering its defense against Syracuse's serve-and-volley style. Four games later, Brown took the trophy, 8-6.
"They're just not good, and their strategy is flawed," Mansur said. "We just sort of calmed down. There's a lot of holes in the court."
As for the first-time doubles pairing, Mansur said the two players complement each other's games.
"We play well together. I pound from the baseline and she poaches" at the net, she said.
Also finishing on top of her bracket was Tanja Vucetic '10, who went 3-0 in the C singles bracket.
She was scheduled to face Rutgers freshman Maryana Milchutskey in the finals after beating BU junior Liz Corrao 6-2, 6-2, but since the rain forced the matches inside, there was not enough time to play the finals.
Still, Vucetic said she couldn't complain about her weekend. She lost to Corrao in a tiebreaker in the same tournament two years ago.
"That's definitely a good start to the year," Vucetic said. "Now everything I've been working for in the past year is paying off."
Julie Flanzer '12 won two three-set matches to finish tied for first in B singles. In A singles, Mansur made it to the finals, but lost 6-0, 6-4 to junior Francine Whu of BU.
Assistant Coach Cecily Dubusker noted two other strong freshman performances. After one of BU's A doubles duos lost in the semifinals, the players faced off against Catherine Stewart '12 and Jenniffer Lee '12, who were placed in B doubles to start.
Despite being up 7-5, Stewart and Lee couldn't close the deal against BU, losing in a tiebreaker, 9-8. But Dubusker and the players saw a lot of positives.
"For two freshmen who weren't our No. 1 team, that shows a lot of progress," Dubusker said.
Lee said she learned a lot from the contest and saw some clear areas of potential improvement for the new pair.
"We didn't communicate together as well as we could have," she said. "When we have a chance, we have to go for it. We can't get hesitant like we did in that match."
Dubusker saw the weekend's tournament as a good jumping-off point for the year.
In addition to using the fall season to get more physically fit, the team should use the time to learn from their matches, she said.
"The goal is not to ... win matches necessarily - obviously that's always the goal - but to learn from wins and to learn from losses," Dubusker said. "Every match that we play in the fall is going to help us."
The Bears travel to Flushing, N.Y. in two weeks to compete in the U.S. Open tournament Oct. 11-13.