ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF women's tennis team wrapped up their 2020 dual match campaign with a statement win against No. 22 Baylor, bringing the team's record to 10-3 at the end of the COVID-19 shortened season.
"It was obviously disappointing to hear that our season has been cut short," said head coach Bryan Koniecko. "I thought we ended it on an amazing note and by far our best match in terms of how hard we fought for each other to beat Baylor on the road. We also had a tremendous fall with great individual results. I think looking back on the season we all know we could have done more; we started to find a little something at the end there. Even though it ended abruptly, I am really excited to have this group back. I am very motivated to get back out with our team, learn from our mistakes this year, and try to overachieve next year."
It was a season filled with milestones. The Knights climbed to their highest mark in the Oracle/ITA rankings twice, entering the season at No. 13 in the preseason poll and then sliding up to No. 12 a few weeks later. The final win of the campaign ended up being the 500th in program history, a landmark victory in the team's 42nd season.
Time to bounce in Waco! ??#ChargeOn ?? #SomethingSpecial pic.twitter.com/7lzU0zsm7O
— UCF Women's Tennis (@UCF_WTennis) March 10, 2020
TOP PERFORMERS
Evgeniya Levashova and Valeriya Zeleva shone bright at the top two singles spots. Levashova went 10-1 overall, compiling a record of 8-1 at the top spot in the lineup. Zeleva was a perfect 2-0 at the No. 1 singles spot as she totaled a record of 8-2 over the campaign. Both finished with winning streaks of four and three respectively. Marie Mattel and Domenika Turkiovic also contributed heavily to the team's success in singles. Mattel went 7-5, splitting time equally across the No. 3 and 4 positions while Turkovic gathered six wins across the fourth, fifth and sixth spots in the lineup.
Levashova and Turkovic combined to compile the most wins as a duo during the season as they earned a record of 6-1 and ended the season on a four-match winning streak. UCF's lone pair to make the NCAA Doubles Championships last season comprised of Ksenia Kuznetsova and Zeleva followed closely behind, picking up five wins. As a team, UCF went 10-3 in the doubles segment, building off the success of going 23-5 in the doubles point last season.
The most recent singles and doubles rankings from the Oralce/ITA had four singles players and three doubles tandems ranked at once, which is the first time that has happened in program history. Captain Rebeka Stolmar was the highest ranked singles player at No. 42, followed by Mattel at No. 66, No. 91 Zeleva and No. 108 Levashova. The three ranked doubles pairs were No. 10 Stolmar and Mattel, No. 47 Kuznetsova and Zeleva and No. 65 Levashova and Turkovic.
UCF boasted the top four ranked singles players in the conference. Only two other singles players were ranked in the top 125, as Mackenzie Clark of Tulane sat at No. 112 and Tulsa's Martina Okalova sat at No. 118. Additionally, the Knights had two of the top three doubles pairs in the conference. Together, UCF's four ranked singles players went 25-11 in the spring and 55-29 over the course of the dual match and tournament seasons.
Levashova was the lone Knight to win an American Athletic Conference Player of the Week honor. She did it three times throughout the shortened campaign, becoming the only UCF player to win the award more than twice in a single season.
The team experienced multiple injuries throughout the year, especially in the beginning. Every member of the team contributed in the team's 2020 efforts, with each player grabbing at least one victory in singles play. Seven of the ten players on the roster were able to collect four or more singles wins.
"We had some bad luck with injuries early on in our season," said Koniecko, "but it was great to see players step up in different matches, I was very proud of that."
THE SCHEDULE
The Black and Gold posted their sixth straight season with more than 10 victories. Half of their wins came against Power 6 opponents, defeating Utah, No. 18 Texas A&M, TCU, Nebraska and No. 22 Baylor. The Knights went 2-0 against the Big 12 and extended their winning streak over American opponents to 11 straight matches.
UCF had ten matches left in the regular season, with five of their opponents sitting inside the top 50 of the Oracle/ITA team rankings. The Knights were set to open a five-match homestand, hosting No. 4 Texas, No. 47 Yale, No. 50 FIU, Cincinnati and Oral Roberts. They then would've hit the road to face conference foes Wichita State and Tulsa before returning home to host No. 14 Oklahoma State and No. 49 Oklahoma. The regular season would have wrapped up on April 11 at South Florida.
TOURNAMENT ACCOLADES
The dual match season was set up to be such a success thanks to the dominating fall. Stolmar and Mattel went 13-2 together in the fall as a pair and won the Southeast Regional Championships. They nearly had another tournament season victory at the ITA All-Americans, where they reached the semifinals but fell in a tight contest. Stolmar ended up winning the consolation championship in the main singles draw at the ITA All-Americans, a victory that propelled her up the rankings to end the fall season. Nandini Sharma took home the Bedford Cup crown, winning a tight championship match after breezing through the first few rounds.
RECORD BREAKERS & CHASERS
When looking at the 2019-20 campaign as a whole, a handful of Knights had a chance to have record-setting seasons. Mattel posted a singles record of 18-5, just 11 wins shy of breaking the single season victories record with ten regular season matches to go. Mattel and Stolmar combined to go 16-4 in doubles, which sits in second place just five wins behind tying two other duos with 21 wins in one campaign. Stolmar and Mattel have compiled 30 victories together in doubles, making them the all-time winningest pair at UCF. Kuznetsova and Zeleva sit with 23 career wins as a tandem, five away from climbing into second place. Individually, Stolmar jumped into a tie with Courtney Cesarini (2013-17) for third in all-time doubles victories with 54. Kuznetsova is slotted in just beind them with 52 career doubles victories.
FINAL RANKINGS
There will be no final rankings release from the ITA, meaning the Knights wrap up their season as the No. 20 team in the country. Their win over No. 22 Baylor was not factored into that ranking. In the latest release of the rankings, UCF was the only American team in the top 50, meaning they had the top seed for the conference tournament all but locked up midway through the season.
The ITA will administer an unpublished double run of the computerized rankings for the ITA Kickoff Weekend Draft which will include the win against Baylor as one of five countable wins. That new ranking will be used to seed teams ahead of the draft sometime in early June. The top 15 teams in the country have the privilege of hosting an ITA Kickoff Weekend site, 16 and below then get to choose where they want to go and what seed they want to be for 2021 ITA Kickoff Weekend.
Additionally, the ITA won't release final singles and doubles rankings either, but will do a run behind the scenes to determine rankings for the fall of 2020. However, the ITA will release end of the year awards at a later date.
FOLLOW THE KNIGHTS
Follow UCF Women's Tennis on social media on Facebook (/UCF.WTennis), Twitter (UCF_WTennis) and Instagram (UCFWTennis).
GET THE APP
Never miss any UCF Knights news from your favorite team by downloading the free UCF Knights app right to your iOS or Android phone! The app provides personalized information for men's and women's teams, scores, schedules, loyalty programs and even breaking news. Click here to download the app now.