Women's tennis loses to West Virginia 5-2

The women’s tennis team was expecting a different homecoming.

Last season, the Bulls shined at home – winning 8 out of 10 games in Buffalo.

After dropping the last match against UTEP on Jan. 31, the team was ready to claim victories.

The Bulls did pick up victories in the top two singles matches, but failed to produce the win.

On Friday, the Bulls (1-2) lost to West Virginia (2-1) 5-2 at the Miller Tennis center in Buffalo, New York. The Mountaineers won two of the first three doubles sets, en route to a governing performance in singles play.

The doubles matches started with a loss for Buffalo. The duo of sophomore Margarita Kotok and junior Dayana Agasieva failed to get the Bulls off to a good start, falling in the first set 6-1.

Buffalo still had a chance to take the double’s point as they went into the second matchup of the day. The combination of junior Laura Holterbosch and senior Laura Fernandez proved too much for West Virginia, tying the doubles match at one each.

The third match was a tightly contested matchup, with both teams tied for most of the game. West Virginia defeated the Bulls’ duo of freshmen Tanja Stojanovska and Doris Aleksovska by the final score of 7-6 via tiebreaker.

From there, the Bulls were down but not out of the game. The change from doubles play to singles play resulted in a hot start for the Bulls as the team won the first two sets of singles play.

The first singles match between the two teams was a 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) victory by Stojanovska, while the second was a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 by Kotok.

West Virginia took the next two sets, tying the singles competition at 2-2 with two matches left.

Holterbosch came close to winning her matchup against West Virginia’s Habiba Shaker. She split the first two sets, yet failed to come up with the victory and eventually lost the third set 6-4.

Junior Dayana Agasieva started her day well, but suffered the same result as Holterbosch. After winning the first set 6-0 against Ikttesh Chahal, she failed to close out the match and lost the next two sets 6-4, 7-5.

Buffalo failed to win a single set in their last matches, falling to West Virginia 6-2, 6-1 in match No. 5 and 6-3, 6-2 in match No. 6.

The Bulls will have two weeks to recover from the loss until their next game. The Bulls will remain home in the Miller Tennis Center to host ASA University (1-0) on Feb. 20. The game will start at 1 p.m.

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