Pacific Palisades, Calif.- Two players on the University of Denver women's tennis team traveled to Pacific Palisades, Calif. this week to compete in the 2015 Women's ITA All-American Championships.

Sophomore Julia O'Loughlin (Highland Beach, Fla.) defeated Maiar Sherif Ahmend of Fresno State 6-4, 6-4 in the pre-qualifying singles. This was the first win at a national event under head coach Christian Thompson. O'Loughlin went on to play Lauren Chypyha of Wisconsin and lost a close match 7-6 (4), 6-2.

"Julia is playing some good tennis right now," Thompson said. "I was impressed with her match against Fresno State's Maiar Sherif in the first round. In the second round, she had chances to win the first set against Wisconsin's Chypyha who played number one in their line-up last year. I know she learned a lot from that match."

In the qualifying singles match, junior Maureen Slattery (Newport, Va.) faced Courtney Colton of Vanderbilt and lost 6-0, 6-1. Her next match in the qualifying singles back draw came against Wendy Zhang of the University of Miami (Fla.), in which she fell 6-2, 6-3.

O'Loughlin and Slattery teamed up for their qualifying doubles match, ultimately losing 8-6 to Madison Westby and Zoe Katz from the University of Southern California. The pair then played in the qualifying doubles back draw and lost 8-3 to Lexi Borr and Asiya Dair of Boston College.

"In doubles action, Maureen and Julia started off very strong against USC and were up 2-0 30-0," Thompson added. "We fell short in the match, but we played aggressive doubles and we need to continue to be fearless at the net.

"Overall, the girls gained a ton of experience playing practice matches and tournament matches against top teams in the country to prepare for Regionals next week."

The DU Women's Tennis fall schedule continues next weekend at the 2015 ITA Regional Championships in Las Vegas, N.V.