Hollands advances at ITA

The Arizona women's tennis team completed the first day of the ITA-All American qualifying tournament today in Pacific Palisades, Calif. The Wildcats advanced junior Dianne Hollands to the second round of play. The doubles team of sophomore Iza Ferreira and junior Maja Mlakar was forced to retire in the middle of its match.

Hollands defeated Harvard's Eva Wang 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 in first-round action. In second-round action tomorrow, Hollands will play Stanford's Theresa Logar. Hollands will be competing to advance to the third round, where she would have the chance to claim one of eight spots to advance to the singles main-draw round.

Mlakar and Ferreira played Marshall's Jessica Johnson and Ashley Kroh. The match was retired after only two games and Johnson and Kroh will move on to the second round. Mlakar has been pre-selected to compete in the singles main-draw portion of the tournament.

Qualifying action will be completed tomorrow. Main-draw action will begin Oct. 9 and will continue to Oct. 12.

CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Robert Cheseret (right) placed first during the Dave Murray Invitational last month.

The UA men's and women's cross country teams will travel up the interstate for the Arizona State University Invitational on Friday. The meet is set to take place at Kiwanis Park in Tempe.

The women will run a 6,000-meter race, which is scheduled to start at 4:45 p.m. The men's 8,000-meter race will begin at 5:15 p.m.

The teams will have their work cut out for them on Friday. Host Arizona State features the No. 3 women's team and the No. 13 men's team in this week's national rankings.

Also joining the fray will be the No. 3 men's team and No. 15 women's team from Northern Arizona. The Wildcats bring the No. 20 men's team and an unranked women's squad to the meet. Other Division 1 schools competing include Hawaii, Long Beach State, New Mexico State and Utah.

A contingent of junior colleges will be represented at the meet as well, including Glendale CC, Scottsdale CC, Mesa CC (featuring the No. 6 women's squad according to the NJCAA Division 2 Hill & Dale's Women's Cross Country poll), Gateway CC, Phoenix CC and the Yavapai CC women's team.

The Wildcats chose to stray from their usual trip to the Pre-NCAA meet this season. Instead of getting a sneak preview at the site of the NCAA Championships, the teams will travel to Fayetteville, Ark. for the Chili Pepper Invitational. The Wildcats will get a chance to run a very competitive race with some of the nation's top runners.

The teams were last in action at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Minn. The Wildcat men used several incredible performances to catapult them to a sixth-place team showing. It also propelled the squad into the national rankings as it debuted at No. 18 in the men's cross country rankings.

Freshman Robert Cheseret led the way with a second-place finish. Junior Beth Hoge led the UA women as they finished 21st in the overall team standings.