HOUSTON – Sophomore Giorgia Roselli shined on the opening day of the 2024 AAC Individual Championships, picking up a singles win and teaming up with Theodora Chantava to collect a doubles win on Thursday at George R. Brown Tennis Center.
 
The duo of Roselli and Chantava began the day with a dispatching of UAB's Gresi Bajiri and Vanessa Mellynchuk, 8-4 to advance to Friday's doubles quarterfinals.
 
In singles, Roselli remained dominant, crushing Tulane's Micah Pierce 6-2, 6-0 to punch her ticket into the singles round of 16 against two-seed Leonie Moeller of Memphis. 
 
In the round of 16 match, Roselli grabbed the advantage with a swift 6-1 first set win, but Moeller responded immediately with a 6-3 victory in set two. Roselli put Moeller on the ropes in set three, jumping out to an early 5-2 lead, but the Memphis standout won four straight games to take a 6-5 advantage. Roselli would respond with a win in the next game to force a tiebreak to decide the match. Moeller took an early 4-0 lead, but would slip up, allowing Roselli to come back and even the tiebreak at 6-6. Roselli had a chance to end the match up 8-7 in the tiebreak, but a close call went the Tiger way and continued the match. The momentum then swung back to Moeller, who closed out the win in the breaker 10-8 to win the match and advance to the singles quarterfinals.
 
Kristina Kudryavtseva fell in her opening round singles match to Ekua Youri of UTSA, 7-5, 6-3, knocking her into the singles consolation bracket.
 
The Shocker doubles team of Roselli and Chantava will play tomorrow at 10am against East Carolina's Ines Bachir and Xenia Jeromin for a spot in the semifinals.
 
Kudryavtseva will play a consolation match tomorrow afternoon against either Lou Chalard of North Texas or Sienna Leeson of South Florida.