ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 8, top-seeded UCF women's tennis team earned their second American Athletic Conference Championship in as many full seasons, beating No. 46, third-seeded Tulsa 4-1 on Sunday afternoon to earn the seventh conference title in program history.
"It's nice to send the seniors off the right way; that's what you want to do," said head coach Bryan Koniecko. "Every time you have seniors who give their everything for the program you want to send them off right. There was a lot of anticipation for this one…this time it was different to kind of have the expectations on us; we had the pressure on us and Tulsa gave us everything they had. It turned into a great college tennis match. I'm just happy when things got hard in third sets that we kept fighting and found a way."
The morning had a few twists and turns to it before the teams hit the courts. The match was initially moved up to 11 a.m. to avoid weather, only to be delayed even earlier due to lightning. The skies opened up and it was decided that the match was to be moved indoors to the Adidas Performance Center at the USTA National Campus. The contest got underway just a half hour past the original noon start time.
It was hard to find an edge early on either of the top two doubles courts once the match got underway. The one court that was able to find an edge was court three as Rebeka Stolmar and Nandini Sharma cruised to a 6-1 win over M Hopton and Laia Monfort Conde. The doubles point was decided on court two where Evgeniya Levashova and Nadja Bay Christians earned a 6-2 victory over Valeryia Rozenkova and Shura Poppe. Court three went unfinished as Valeriya Zeleva and Ksneia Kuznetsova were leading Vera Ploner and Martina Okalava 5-4.
First sets were split right down the middle as each side took three sets.
No. 30 Stolmar wasted no time in putting a point on the scoreboard as she earned a quick 6-1, 6-2 victory over Conde Monfort on court two. The Knight captain improves to 12-6 with the win and got a little revenge in the process; Conde Monfort had beat Stolmar in the team's final match of the regular season back on Apr. 19.
It was a while before the next point was found since every remaining court had crept into third sets.
UCF earned the next point in a gritty first set battle at the top spot in singles. No. 19 Zeleva bested No. 88 Okalova 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 at the top spot in singles to give the Black and Gold a 3-0 advantage. Zeleva hasn't lost a match since January and has been victorious in her last 12 decisions, improving to 12-2 on the campaign.
Tulsa's lone point of the match came on court six where Sharma fell to Lian Benedejcic 1-6, 6-1, 6-1 as Sharma's nine-match win streak came to its conclusion.
The Knights stormed court three to celebrate their back-to-back crowns as No. 99 Levashova finished off her match with a pair of overhead smashes against Poppe, topping her 2-6, 6-0, 6-2.
The title is the second as part of The American and the seventh in program history. UCF earns the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which will be their seventh appearance. It will be the first time that the Black and Gold head to the NCAA Tournament in three straight seasons. The Knights win back-to-back titles for the first time since 1999 and 2000 when the team won four straight from 1997-2002.
The Knights have earned back-to-back conference titles without a blemish, going perfect against conference play in each of their two championship seasons. UCF was 6-0 against conference play during the 2019 regular season before running through Memphis, Tulsa and South Florida to the title. 2021 saw the Black and Gold tally a 3-0 record against conference foes prior to the tournament. Not only was UCF perfect in conference play, but they were also undefeated on their home court in each campaign.
The Knights wrap up the conference tournament having won their last six matches and won 11 of their last 12.
UCF had lost to Tulsa in their first nine meetings, but since then its been all Knights as the Black and Gold have been victorious in their last five tilts. They beat the Golden Hurricane three times in 2019, including in the conference semifinals, before meeting them twice in 2021.
UP NEXT
The Knights await their placement in the NCAA Tournament. The selection show for the big dance will take place on May 3 on NCAA.com.
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