NIU women’s tennis (19-4, 5-1 MAC) sparked a five-match win streak Friday with a 6-1 defeat of the Bowling Green State University Falcons (9-10, 0-6 MAC), improving to 5-1 in the Mid-American Conference.
“They have girls who like to smack the ball pretty hard,” said NIU women’s tennis head coach Eric Burns of Bowling Green’s team. “We do too, so it was just a battle of who could do it better today. The doubles point got us off to a good start and was a big point for us. We played very well, and then were just able to gut out some tougher matches.”
The Huskies sealed the doubles point to take an early lead, with 6-2 wins at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles.
Duos junior Isabella Righi and freshman Lucia Yecora as well as senior Erika Dimitriev and junior Jenna Horne bested the Falcons in doubles to put the Huskies ahead.
Senior Maria Dzemeshkevich and junior Nataly Ninova were up 4-3 against Falcons sophomore duo Tia Clemens and Isabella Baker when the match was ruled unfinished.
The Huskies continued the dominance in singles matches, winning three matches in three-set battles.
Dzemeshkevich came back from a 7-5 first set loss to take 6-4, 7-5 sets to take down Clemens in the No. 1 singles match.
After a close first set loss, freshman Irmak Budak took the next two for a 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Baker.
“It was such a high level of tennis on those two courts,” Burns said. “Very few errors. It was just a slugfest, so for us to get both of those in three sets tells you how well those two (Dzemeshkevich and Budak) had to be playing to win those.”
Righi was the clincher for the Huskies, winning a 7-6 (7-5) first set before sweeping the second against Falcons freshman Lucia Gaio to earn the fourth team point for NIU.
Continuing her strong debut season, Yecora started her match against Bowling Green junior Leticia Fonseca with a 6-4 first set win. After a quick 6-1 second set loss, Yecora rebounded for a 6-1 third set for the victory.
Ninova needed just two sets to take down freshman Konstantina Adamopoulou, coming out on top in 7-5, 6-1 sets.
Dimitriev was the only loss for the Huskies, falling in consecutive 6-1 sets to sophomore Qianyu Liu in her first match since March 16.
“I was really proud of our effort,” Burns said. “The resilience was just unbelievable. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen momentum swing in a match quite so dramatically. In a hurry it went from looking like we were going to lose the match to turning and turning it to ‘we’re going to win this thing comfortably.’”
UP NEXT
The Huskies take on Western Michigan University at noon Sunday at Nelson Tennis Center at Chick Evans Field House in DeKalb.
