Women's tennis clinches MAC Tournament berth

After having a strong start to the season, the women's tennis team had a worrying losing skid, driven by injury and bad luck.

The Bulls (13-4, 4-4 Mid-American Conference) came out with two wins over the weekend against key MAC rivals, grinding out a 4-3 win over Eastern Michigan (9-13, 4-4 MAC) on Friday and a one-sided 6-1 victory over Toledo (8-11, 2-4 MAC) on Saturday, earning them a spot in the MAC Tournament.

The weekend started with difficulty as the bulls took on Eastern Michigan in Yipsilanti, Mich. The Eagles came out ready to compete, sweeping the doubles point and limiting Buffalo to only 14 of a possible 24 points.

Despite losing the doubles point, Bulls' head coach Kristen Ortman doesn't let the team dwell on a loss, which allowed them to be successful in singles play.

"You only have 10 minutes between doubles and singles and you just have to talk it out," Ortman said. "Put it behind you; you can't do anything about it, so it's only worth one point. You have six other points coming up and you just have to move forward. You have to be in the present."

Junior Tanvi Shah was the first to open the singles victories, winning 6-3 and 6-1.

Also seeing wins were junior Miranda Podlas and freshman Gopika Kapoor. Kapoor clinched the victory for Buffalo after going into a tiebreaker, in which she won 7-6.

As the team moved east to Toledo, changes were made to the opening doubles lineup before the team hit the court. Riding high on her success from the previous day, Kapoor joined Podlass at the No. 1 team, while Shah moved down to play with junior Marta Stoyanova at two. Fernandez and junior Anamaria Candanoza filled out the final team.

"That was a morning of decision," Ortman said. "Something wasn't working and something needed to change. So we just thought, 'What can we lose here?' We're not being successful with what we're doing, so something's gotta give."

The shuffle seemed to work in favor of the Bulls who swept the Rockets in doubles, starting off the day with the critical doubles point.

Though the momentum was in favor of the Bulls, they were not guaranteed an easy run into singles matchups. The first matchup ended with a victory to Toledo's Pia Rygh, who powered over Podlas in two dominating sets, winning each 6-1. The loss was only Podlas' sixth of the season.

After Podlas' fall, however, the team rallied to behind her as Fernandez and senior Tamara Markovic won their respective matches. Markovic clinched the match with a 6-3 and 6-2 win.

The Bulls will play their last game of the regular season on Friday against Akron (17-9, 5-3 MAC), finishing off conference play before heading into the tournament. Matches start at 2 p.m. in Ohio.

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