Aug. 5, 2004
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech women’s tennis head coach Bryan Shelton announced the signing of two more players in Esther van Londen and Daria Potapova for the 2004-05 season, bringing the total number of newcomers to three with the earlier signing of Kristi Miller.
A native of Utrecht, Netherlands, van Londen joins Miller as the only true freshmen on the team after a successful juniors career. Most recently, she was a singles and doubles semifinalist at the ITF Flanders Heiveld Tournament in Belgium after finishing as a doubles quarterfinalist at the ITF Fischery Open der Stadt Wels in Austria earlier in the month. In the past four years, van Londen has won an ITF doubles tournament on seven occasions and been a finalist four times. She has advanced to the semifinals in eight ITA doubles event and the quarterfinals, six times. In singles play, van Londen has been a finalist once, a semifinalist twice, and made it to the quarterfinals in the 15th Czech Int’l in January, 2003.
“Esther is making her way from Holland, so it’s going to be an adjustment for her coming over to our system, first academically and then with the structure of the team environment,” said Shelton. “I think that, although it’s going to be an adjustment for her, she’s really excited about it. She loves team sports, and so she’s already adopted the spirit of Georgia Tech athletics. I expect for her to have a good year for us.”
Potapova transfers to Georgia Tech from Baylor, where she competed in the Nos. 2-5 slots in the singles lineup, posting a dual-match record of 12-9 and a 19-12 overall mark. Potopava will conclude her career as Yellow Jacket, as the Valencia, Spain native transfers in as a senior. In her collegiate career, she has a dual-match singles record of 60-33 and has 29 victories in doubles play.
“Daria is coming in with one year of eligibility left, and I think that she’s definitely going to supply some leadership and experience right away for our team,” said Shelton. “She’s played very high in the lineup for Baylor in the last three years, including No. 1 doubles and No. 2 singles this past season. In 2004, she had really strong records in both singles and doubles, so we’re expecting her to step in right away to be a leader of this team and also give us a lot of good results throughout the year.”
Potapova, van Londen and Miller will join Kelly Anderson, Kacie Anson, Lyndsay Shosho, Alison Silverio and Lindsey Stauss to make up the 2004-05 Georgia Tech women’s tennis team.
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