May 22, 2001

LAS VEGAS - UNLV sophomore Paulina Janus lost her opening match and was eliminated from her first NCAA singles championship, which got underway Tuesday at the Lincoln Tennis Center in Stone Mountain, Ga.

Competing for the first time since April 28, the 68th-ranked Janus wasted a 3-1 first-set lead and was swept 6-3, 6-1 by 41st-ranked Liesl Fichtbauer of Fresno State. Janus ended the season with an overall record of 16-8 while Fichtbauer, a senior, improved to 33-6.

"I didn't like how Paulina matched up with her opponent when I saw the draw," UNLV head coach Kevin Cory said. "Then, Fichtbauer came out and played a nearly flawless game. She kept the ball deep and kept slicing it. She made maybe five unforced errors the entire match."

The defeat marked only the third time in school history that a UNLV women's representative was ousted in the first round of the NCAA tournament and the first time since Marianne Vallin in 1996.

With Nenad Zivkovic's withdrawl from the NCAA men's tournament because of injury, Janus' loss marked the official end of the UNLV tennis season.