If there's one place you should make sure you succeed, it's at your own tournament. The women's tennis team did just that at this weekend's Wolverine Invitational at the Varsity Tennis Center.

A plethora of Wolverines placed in their respective singles flights, led by junior Chrissie Nolan. Nolan, who was seeded fifth, was runner-up in the "Blue" flight after two upset victories of 4-6, 7-6 (5), 11-9 and 3-6, 6-1, 10-6 over the No. 4 and No. 2 seeds on her way to the finals.

Nolan finally fell yesterday to top-seeded Dora Vastag of Michigan State 6-3, 6-1.

Freshman Debra Streifler also continued the successful start to her young collegiate career. After a fifth-place finish in her flight at the William and Mary Invitational two weeks ago, Streifler breezed through the "Maize" flight without dropping a set.

"There were no surprises," Michigan coach Bitsy Ritt said. "I have a lot of confidence in each player and was certainly pleased with their performances."

Juniors Kavitha Tipirneni and Kim Plaushines rounded out Michigan's scoring in the "Blue" flight, with fourth- and eighth-place finishes, respectively. Vastag proved to be a Wolverine killer all weekend, as she was responsible for Plaushines' exit in the second round, (6-4, 6-4), and Tipirneni's defeat in the third round, (6-2, 6-1).

Senior Jen Duprez recovered from her first-round loss on Friday and continued on to win the consolation bracket of the "Blue" flight. Another senior, Joanne Musgrove, kept the winning trend alive, winning all her matches in the singles round-robin.

Along with the play of their singles competitors, the Wolverines were happy to see that the quality of their doubles teams had not declined. The doubles point in last year's dual meets was nearly automatic for Michigan, and this year has started off as more of the same. After two of their three doubles teams placed two weeks ago, Michigan squads won both the "Victors" doubles flight and doubles round-robin. The team composed of Duprez and Plaushines upset both the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds en route to yesterday's first-place finish. The duo outdid its Michigan counterparts of Nolan and Tipirneni, who finished fourth.

The pairing of Musgrove and Streifler went undefeated in the doubles round-robin.

"We have a lot of work to do still," Ritt said. "We need to identify what we are doing well, but we did show good improvement from the William and Mary tournament."

Michigan closed out the fall tournament season without two of its brightest stars, sophomores Michelle DaCosta and Leanne Rutherford. The two were invited to this year's Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championship in Palisades, Calif. But they were not as successful as the rest of their team, failing to make it out of pre-qualifying, losing their first-round singles and doubles matches.

"I think at various times of the year everyone will have to take a leadership role," Ritt said. "Obviously, it should come from the upperclassmen, but we'll see who steps up."

The Wolverines will resume play on Jan. 10, when they host the Michigan Invitational before dual play begins.