Six Mountaineers travelled to Charleston this weekend, as WVU played their second tournament of the tennis season, co-hosting Thunder in the Mountains with Marshall University.
One week ahead of the ITA All-American Championships, the Mountaineers faced players from Marshall, Cleveland State, and Radford from Friday through Sunday. The team, comprising of redshirt sophomore Maja Dodik, juniors Michaela Kucharova and Catherine Wassick, senior Momoko Nagato, and graduate students Ting-Pei Chang and Love-Star Alexis, won 75% of their singles matches and 75% of doubles matches during the weekend.
West Virginia played six doubles matches on Friday and two on Saturday. Chang and Dodik partnered to win both of their matches on the tournament’s first day, winning 6-1 over a team from Marshall and 6-3 against a pair from Radford.
While other participating teams brought 10 players into Charleston for the weekend, the Mountaineers had multiple pairings for their six players in doubles. Love-Star Alexis and Momoko Nagato each played alongside Kucharova and Wassick for a total five WVU teams.
On Friday, Kucharova and Nagato won 6-3 against a Radford team while Nagato and Wassick defeated Marshall’s Fisher and Limanen 6-2. Alexis and Kucharova fell 6-4 to Marshall’s Vanderheyden and McGrane, and Alexis and Wassick lost 6-3 to Fisher and Limanen.
West Virginia won both of their doubles matches on Saturday, with Nagato and Kucharova winning 6-4 and Chang and Dodik winning 6-0 against teams from Cleveland State.
The Mountaineers played a different team each day of the tournament in singles, starting with the Cleveland State Vikings on Friday before facing Marshall on Saturday and Radford on Sunday. Dodik and Nagato each finished undefeated in the weekend in singles and doubles, winning three matches in each tournament. Kucharova came out on top in both of her two singles matches as well, winning 6-3, 6-1 on Friday and 7-5, 6-2 on Sunday, while Catherine Wassick played her only match on Saturday, defeating Kylie Fisher 6-4, 6-3.
Alexis and Chang each lost their first match to a Viking on Friday, with Oihane Vicario winning 6-4, 4-6, 10-7 over Alexis and Ella Franz defeating Ting-Pei Chang 6-4, 3-6, 10-6. Chang won her matches on Saturday and Sunday in convincing fashion, defeating her Marshall opponent 6-3, 6-2 and her Radford opponent 6-2, 6-1.
Love-Star Alexis, who played for Middle Tennessee State last season, played two matches Saturday, winning one 6-0, 7-6 (2) and falling short against Emma Vanderheyden 6-3, 3-6, 13-11. Alexis finished her singles play with a 6-1, 5-7, 10-7 loss to Radford’s Julia Abrams on Sunday.
The tennis team will travel to Cary, North Carolina on Saturday to play in the ITA All-American Championships until Thursday, October 5th.
