NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion women’s tennis team opened up the Spring season Saturday with an impressive 5-2 victory over the visiting Penn State Nittany Lions at the Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center. The Lady Monarchs won 5-of-6 singles matches in front of a crowd of 250 Monarch faithful.
“We are so thankful for the support we received from Monarch Nation today,” added ODU head coach Dominic Manilla. “It made all the difference in the end. We are really excited about this team, I think we have great leaders and we all came together today. We look forward to this season moving forward.”
Penn State earned the doubles team point as the Nittany Lions took 2-of-3 doubles matches.
First to finish was the No. 3 team of Adriana Rajkovic and Ivana Vukovic, who defeated Penn State’s Jacqueline Zuhse and Katherine Whiteaway 6-2.
Moving over to singles, Vukovic earned the Lady Monarchs their first team point with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Zuhse in the No. 6 spot.
No. 1 singles action saw ODU’s No. 68 ranked freshman, Borislava Botusharova, down Victoria Kisialeva 6-2, 6-2. On Court No. 5, Old Dominion’s Marijana Novakovic bested the Nittany Lions’ Samantha Tutelman (6-1, 6-3) in straight sets.
Next to finish was ODU’s Ingrid Vojcinakova, who was too much for Devan McCluskey 6-3, 6-3 in No. 4 single’s action.
All eyes turned to Old Dominion’s Nikol Hristova and Dasha Sapogova playing in No. 2 action. Hristova took the first set 6-1, but Sapogova pulled even with a 6-4 second set. Drawing energy from the crowd, Hristova came back from being down 3-0 in the final set to edge out Sapogova 6-3 in dramatic fashion.
“First of all I just want to thank the audience and all of the people that were here to support us,” said Hristova. “When our team saw the crowd behind us and yelling our names and ‘Let’s go ODU, Let’s go Monarchs’, it was so exciting and ultimately pumped us up. I think that was the key to helping me end the match that way because the fans were able to create a different atmosphere.”
Final Score: ODU: 5 PENN STATE: 2
Doubles (order of finish: 3,2,1)
No. 1 - Kisialeva/Sapogova (PSU) def. Botusharova/Hristova (ODU) 7-5
No. 2 - Surin/McCluskey (PSU) def. Vojcinakova/Novakovic (ODU) 6-4
No. 3 - Rajkovic/Vukovic (ODU) def. Zuhse/Whiteaway (PSU) 6-2
Singles (order of finish: 6,1,5,3,4,2)
No. 1 - No. 68 Botusharova (ODU) def. Kisialeva (PSU) 6-2, 6-2
No. 2 - Hristova (ODU) def. Sapogova (PSU) 6-1, 4-6, 6-3
No. 3 - Blik (PSU) def. Rajkovic (ODU) 6-2, 7-5
No. 4 - Vojcinakova (ODU) def. McCluskey (PSU) 6-3, 6-3
No. 5 - Novakovic (ODU) def. Tutelman (PSU) 6-1, 6-3
No. 6 - Vukovic (ODU) def. Zuhse (PSU) 6-0, 6-1
NEXT UP FOR THE LADY TENNIS MONARCHS
Old Dominion heads to Fayetteville, Ark. on Jan. 30 for an 11 a.m. ET contest against host Arkansas, followed by a 5 p.m. ET match with Oral Roberts.
Follow the Lady Monarchs on Social Media
Follow us on Twitter @ODUWomensTennis and ‘Like’ us on Facebook at ODU Women’s Tennis to stay up to date with the latest ODU Women’s Tennis News.