ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) – The No. 26 UCF women’s tennis team defeated the Tulsa Golden Hurricane by a score of 6-1 on Friday night to extend their winning streak to 14-matches.
“I thought we did a great job today,” said head coach Bryan Koniecko, “We played Tulsa earlier in the year and won 4-1 and we felt like we snuck out of that one so we knew this one would be tough again. I thought we did a good job playing a really good doubles point and then just being focused in singles play the whole time.”
The win was UCF’s second over Tulsa in the regular season. The Black and Gold beat the Golden Hurricane back on Jan. 27 as part of ITA Kickoff Weekend. That match was the first match of UCF’s current winning streak. Friday night’s match represented the end of regular season conference play. The Knights finished with a clean 5-0 record in the American Athletic Conference.
Doubles play began with UCF leading on all courts, and it stayed that way throughout most of the segment. Natalia Serrano and Domenika Turkovic were the first pair to finish as they topped Megan Hopton and Shura Poppe by a score of 6-3 on court three. Court two would clinch the doubles point for UCF as Marie Mattel and Rebeka Stolmar defeated Martha Matoula and Manon Meulenberg 6-2. A top-35 doubles match took place on court one and went unfinished as No. 31 Valeriya Zeleva and Ksenia Kuznetsova were leading No. 15 Martina Okalova and Vera Ploner 4-3.
The Knights bolted out in front of nearly all of their opponents in singles play. The first to secure a singles point for UCF was Mattel as she bested Megan Hopton 6-2, 6-4 on court four.
Finishing at nearly the same time, Serrano got the best of her opposition, taking down Poppe on court five 6-3, 6-2. Serrano has now won 11 singles matches in a row and moves to 12-1 on the season.
Stolmar would pick up the clincher on court three where she triumphed over Ploner 6-2, 6-3. That is Stolmar’s tenth consecutive singles victory and moves her overall record to 11-3. She has gone 10-1 at the No. 3 spot in the lineup this season.
The match would play itself out despite the Knights clinching it at 4-0. UCF would pick up an additional point as No. 41 Zeleva picked up another win over a ranked opponent as she downed No. 98 Okalova 7-5, 6-2 at the top spot. Zeleva leads the team with 14 victories and stands with a record of 14-3. She is 7-3 against ranked opposition.
The only court to fall to Tulsa would be court two where Matoula edged No. 84 Kuznetsova 6-3, 7-5.
The final court to finish would be court six as Turkovic topped Marina Davtyan in a third set super-tiebreaker 4-6, 7-5, 10-8.
UP NEXT
The Knights will be back in action on Sunday as No. 34 Illinois pays a visit to the UCF Collegiate Tennis Center at the USTA National Campus at noon. The match will be the last of UCF's 14-match home stand.
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