DeKALB, Illinois – The Northern Illinois University women's tennis team held its final tune-up before opening its dual match season over the weekend when the Huskies welcomed four teams to the Nelson Tennis Center at Chick Evans Field House for the NIU Huskie Winter Invitational.
After completing the fall tournament season in early November, NIU fourth year head coach Eric Burns said it was important for the Huskies to play competitive matches before heading to Kentucky next week for dual matches against Louisville, Bellarmine and Kentucky.
"It's such a long break from the time we're finished with the fall invitationals in November until we play duals that you don't want to go into a dual without competitive matches under your belt for two months," Burns said. "This was a treat event to get the rust off and get prepared for the dual season.
"We played really well," he continued. "We brought a lot of energy and focus to the weekend after a tough week of practices. We've been training really hard, everyone fought extremely hard and got some great results. Even in the losses, we looked really good."
Players from Iowa, DePaul, Montana State and Marshall competed in five singles flights Saturday through Monday, with four doubles flights played on both Saturday and Sunday.
Freshman
Isabella Righi (Palma de Mallorca, Spain / IES Centre de Tecnificacio Esportiva IB) advanced to Monday's final in Single Flight 4 after wins on the first two days. Junior
Diana Lukyanova (Moscow, Russia / Moscow Secondary School 199) came back after a first day loss to Pia Kranholdt of Iowa to win the consolation bracket final over Marta Garcia-Reboredo of Montana State, 5-4 (7-5), 2-4 (11-9).
"Diana had a really good weekend going 2-1," Burns said. "She beat DePaul's No. 1 player and Montana State's top player who was All Big Sky Conference as a freshman. We saw her get things going and play at the level we know she can play."
The Huskies went 5-3 in both singles and doubles on the opening day with
Reagan Welch's 2-6, 6-2 (10-7) win over Iowa's Anya Lamoreaux highlighting NIU's singles wins.
"In addition to Reagan's win over Iowa, there were two or three other matches that went three sets against the Hawkeyes," Burns said. "Erika [Dimitriev] and Nastia [
Anastasia Rakita] had some great chances. I could go across the board and everyone played pretty well. We're really happy with what we saw this weekend and how we have progressed in the last couple of weeks."
NIU went 3-4 in singles on Sunday and closed out the tournament on Monday by winning seven of 10 matches.
Click here to see the complete results and scores from the weekend.
NIU opens dual match play Friday, January 20 in Louisville, Kentucky where the Huskies will take on Louisville and Bellarmine. The Huskies play at Kentucky on Sunday, January 22.
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