Indiana women’s tennis was scheduled to face off against Yale University on Friday and Marquette University on Sunday for its second and third home matches of the spring season at the IU Tennis Center. But due to inclement weather, the match against Yale was pushed to Saturday afternoon.
The snowy weather stirred up a storm in Bloomington as the Hoosiers fell to a 3-0 deficit but came back and defeated Yale with a final score of 4-3 and later pulled through with a 5-2 victory against Marquette.
Things seemed dim for the Hoosiers to start against the Bulldogs after losing in the first two singles matches and failing to secure the doubles point. Yale came close to sweeping Indiana with the quick 3-0 lead it built.
Junior Mila Mejic’s singles win 0-6, 6-3, 6-3 against junior Rhea Shrivastava started the comeback for Indiana. Efforts from junior Alexandra Staiculescu in a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 win and freshman Lara Schneider with a 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 win gave the Hoosiers two more points to tie the series 3-3.
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In the deciding match, Indiana junior Lexi Kubas faced off against Yale junior Vivian Chengthe. After splitting the first two sets 6-3, 5-7, Kubas handily won the third set 6-2.
Indiana head coach Ramiro Azcui said this win was important for the team, but understood how much the result meant individually for Kubas.
“I'm just so proud of her,” Azcui said. “It's been a tough battle for her coming back and being able to contribute to the team. For her to step up, believe that she could do it and the fight that she was showing in every point, was just awesome.”
The Hoosiers took on Marquette University the following day, looking to sweep the weekend’s matches. Marquette came into the matchup at 3-3 attempting to move above 0.500, but Indiana carried its momentum over en route to a 5-2 victory.
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After Indiana won the doubles point and Staiculescu gave the team a 2-0 advantage, Mejic captured the third point of the series with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Nicole Hopman. Indiana settled in quickly and secured the series win on Kubas’ match winning point in the sixth singles match of the day.
Azcui said the Hoosiers carried themselves well after the Yale win, which gave them much-needed momentum for the rest of the weekend.
“The coaching staff communicates a lot to slow things down for the players,” Azcui said. “Because of that, we were able to get into a lot of matches, and able to fight all the way through. They were very coachable. The whole team strongly believed in what we were trying to communicate to them.”
Following the 2-0 weekend, Indiana will prepare to face Butler University at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at the IU Tennis Center.
