Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Forest University
National Indoor Championships
Bea Bielik Wins Singles Title at National Indoor Championships
11/11/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Nov. 11, 2001
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas - Wake Forest's Bea Bielik topped Stanford's Lauren Kalvaria 6-1, 6-3 in the women's singles final Sunday at the Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships at the Brookhaven Country Club.
Bielik, the first Wake player to reach the final at this tournament, needed just 66 minutes to beat Kalvaria in today's final. The national collegiate singles title is the second of Bielik's career - she also won the 2000 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) National Clay Court title.
Bielik, the No. 3 seed this week, served 11 aces against sixth-seeded Kalvaria (she had 10 aces in yesterday's semifinals). Bielik also avenges a loss to Kalvaria in last May's NCAA semifinals.
Bielik broke Kalvaria's serve in the first game of the match and rolled from there. "I'd been serving well the whole tournament and to get a break early let me go out there and swing away and not worry about percentages early on," Bielik said. "I think that put (Kalvaria) on the defensive early because she knew she'd have to break (my serve) to get back in the match."
Bielik, a junior from Valley Stream, N.Y., is now 7-1 this season and notched five top-50 wins this week. Bielik and Kalvaria were ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively, in the ITA preseason national singles rankings.
"(Bielik) was a little nervous before the match, but when she came out and served well in the first set everything kind of fell into place," Wake Forest coach Brian Fleishman said.
This event, presented by The Dallas Morning News and hosted by SMU, is the nation's premier collegiate indoor tennis tournament and is the second of three national championship events for college tennis this season. The first events - the Riviera Women's and ITA Men's All-American Championships - were held last month, and the third event is season-ending NCAA Championships in May.
