Wisconsin Competes at NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships

Waco, TX. – The Wisconsin Women’s tennis team competed in the NCAA singles and doubles championships this week hosted by the Baylor Bears. Alina Mukhortova and Maria Sholokhova represented the Badgers in the tournament with Sholokhova competing in both the Singles and Doubles bracket. 

 

It was a tough couple of days for the Badgers as they finished the week with a combined 1-2 record in the Singles and Doubles tournaments. Maria Sholokhova started the week competing in the Singles tournament on Tuesday, where she matched up with Catherine Aulia of Tennessee. Aulia started the first set out hot, taking the first three games of the match. Sholokhova battled back, winning three of the next five games making it a 5-3 advantage for Aulia, but eventually lost the first set 6-3. After losing the first set, Sholokhova started the second set well. She took four of the first five games of the set taking a commanding 4-1 lead over Aulia. However, Aulia was able to chip away at Sholkhova’s lead and eventually she won a back and forth set 7-5. The opening round loss for Sholkhova was an upset by all accounts as she sported an 11-1 singles record coming into the matchup, and was the third seed in the tournament.

Sholokhova and Mukhortova bounced back in a big way on Wednesday in the doubles tournament where they took on Connie Ma and Valerie Glozman of Stanford. The Badgers won an extremely competitive first set. They were knotted up at 4-4, then they took the final two games, breaking the Stanford serve in the final game to win the set 6-4. From there the Badgers never looked back, taking the next set 6-2 after winning 5 games in a row. 

Sholokhova and Mukhortova moved on to the second round of the doubles tournament Thursday afternoon and matched up with Kate Fakih and Olivia Center from UCLA. The Badgers started off the match strong taking the first set 6-2. After a great first set, the Badgers had a good chance to finish off the UCLA duo in the second set after they took a 5-4 lead. Unfortunately, the Badgers weren’t able to take advantage of the opportunity and dropped the final three games of the set to lose 7-5. In the final tie-breaking set, the Bruins never surrendered the lead and took the overall match ending the tournament for the Badger Women.

This marked the end of the fall campaign for the Wisconsin…