May 22, 2001
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — Notre Dame four-time All-American women’s tennis player and the 2001 Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Senior Player-of-the-Year Michelle Dasso (Long Grove, Ill./Stevenson HS) won opening round matches at the NCAA singles and doubles championship at the Lincoln Tennis Center in Stone Mountain, Ga. The fourth seed in singles won an early morning first-round contest against North Carolina’s 14th-ranked Marlene Mejia by 6-1, 6-2 to reach the second round. She next will meet Weber State’s 47th-ranked Lenka Zacharova, a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Princeton’s Kavitha Krishnamurthy, in the first of two possible singles matches on Wednesday.
The No. 5-8 seeded doubles team of Dasso and junior All-American Becky Varnum (Colorado Springs, Colo./Cheyenne Mountain) beat Old Dominion’s 49th-ranked Nataly Cahana and Ana Radeljevic 6-0, 7-5 in the first round. The next will meet regional rival Kristy Dascoli and Monica Rincon in the second round. The Irish defeated the Buckeye pair to win the ITA Midwest Doubles title in November and also at No. 1 doubles in Notre Dame’s dual-match win over Ohio State.
By virtue of being named seeds in the singles and doubles draw, Dasso and Varnum earned ITA All-America honors, the third and fourth All-America honors for Dasso — also a singles and doubles All-American in 1999 — and the first for Varnum. Dasso’s four All-America citations mark the most for an Irish player under 12th-year head coach Louderback.