Things did not go quite as planned in West Virginia’s final road trip of the season.
The Mountaineers traveled to Lubbock, Texas on Thursday followed by a trip to Provo, Utah on Saturday for matches against the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Brigham Young Cougars. Both matches ended early in 4-0 losses for West Virginia.
Facing the ITA’s No. 27 Red Raiders, West Virginia showed promise with slight lineup changes across the board. With junior Camilla Bossi seemingly back to stay and taking singles court one, sophomore Maja Dodik slid into court three and junior Michaela Kucharova maintained a high position at court four, as freshman Maya Bordereau and senior Momoko Nagato took a rest at Texas Tech.
Both Bordereau and Nagato made appearances in doubles, though, where last week’s pairing of Bossi and Bordereau remained in the lineup at court two. Nagato paired with Kucharova at court one while Dodik sat out of the doubles lineup entirely despite showing success with Bordereau throughout the year. The pairs fell 6-1 and 6-0 respectively, ending the court three matchup early and securing the doubles point for Texas Tech.
Singles matches were completed on courts three, five, and six, and all went in favor of Texas Tech. Dodik fell 6-2, 6-4 to Avelina Sayfetdinova while junior Tatiana Lipatova lost just her third match of the season in a 6-2, 6-2 match on court five. Graduate student Ting-Pei Chang played and fell at court six, 6-4, 6-4.
The teams agreed to end the match early with a 4-0 score, leaving the Mountaineers unable to shorten the point margin for the day. Bossi led 3-0 in a third set against the ITA’s No. 49 singles player, Cristina Tiglea, when the match was cut short.
Graduate student Love-Star Alexis, who spent much of the season filling in for Bossi at court one, also fought a close match before the day’s early conclusion. Alexis fell 7-6 (1) in the first set before winning 6-3 to force a third. The players were tied at one game each when the match ended. Kucharova was battling back from a 6-5 deficit in the second set.
With the difficult loss behind them, the Mountaineers traveled to Utah to face the Cougars on Saturday, not knowing the similar fate that would greet them.
Changing up lineups again, WVU moved Bossi and Bordereau to doubles court three and brought back the newly-formed pair of Dodik and Chang to plug into the court two spot. The change had some level of merit, as Bossi and Bordereau took a 6-3 victory to continue the doubles round after Chang and Dodik fell 6-0 on court two.
In a pivotal fight for the doubles point, Nagato and Kucharova fell 7-5 to the No. 52 pairing in the nation, Emilee Astle and Kendall Kovick. West Virginia has still only won one match without the doubles point this season.
Bossi and Alexis had the luxury of finishing their matches against BYU, but neither match went WVU’s way. Bossi fell to No. 120 Bobo Huang 6-4, 6-1 shortly before Alexis fell 7-5, 6-0 to Kendall Kovick.
Bordereau found her way back in the singles lineup on Saturday but fell at court three, 6-2, 6-3. With the victory secured for No. 44 BYU, West Virginia once again opted to start traveling early. Only Tatiana Lipatova, who was down 1-0 after winning the first game on court six, led her match when the day ended.
With the losses, West Virginia is now 14-11 on the year and 3-10 in-conference entering the Big 12 Tournament. BYU improved to 6-5 in the conference, and Texas Tech is 10-3 after securing a second weekend win over Cincinnati.
The Big 12 Women’s Tennis Tournament is the next and possibly final stop for the Mountaineers this year. Matches begin Wednesday, April 17 in Stillwater, Okla. and will continue through Saturday, April 20.
Photo from WVU Women’s Tennis
