By Nina MandellThe Daily Northwestern

Northwestern women hosted its first tournament of the season, the Wildcat classic this weekend, taking home two singles and two doubles wins out of six possible first place finishes over the course of the three-day tournament. The Cats, who finished last season with Alexis Prousis and Cristelle Grier winning the NCAA doubles championship, saw promising performances from freshman Samantha Murray and Keri Robinson who both won singles brackets.

The men’s tennis team also made its first appearance with seniors Matt Christian and Willy Lock who ended the weekend with a second round loss in the Polo Ralph Lauren All-American championships over the weekend, losing to Georgia’s Luis Flores and John Isner 9-7. The duo stayed with Georgia, which was ranked No. 1 at the end of last season, until a baseline to baseline from shot at 7-7 turned the tides to Georgia. But Christian said that for the doubles team’s first tournament together, it looked like it would be a promising year.

“We went to the changeover and we thought we had them,” he said. “We didn’t give it to them, we just didn’t break them all day.”

NU coach Paul Torricelli said earlier this week that he expects Lock and Christian to compete for the No. 1 doubles spot this season- a spot with Christian that was vacated by Adam Schaecterle, who used up his eligibility last spring.

Christian said the team’s promising performance in the fall tournament will hopefully give them an advantage that he didn’t have with Schaecterle-higher preseason rankings that he hopes will help garner support for an NCAA bid in the spring.

“Adam and I didn’t get to play together in the fall, so we had to make up for it for the rest of the year,” Christian said. “Hopefully this will give us more of an advantage.”

Reach Nina Mandell at [email protected].