NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion women's tennis team continued its haul of honors on Tuesday as they earned Conference USA automatic bids in singles and doubles to the 2022 NCAA Women's Tennis Championships.
Yuliia Starodubtseva earned her second straight automatic bid in singles, while the doubles pairing of Starodubtseva and Tatsiana Sasnouskaya received the automatic bid for doubles.
The championships will be held May 23-28 at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex in Champaign, Illinois with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign serving as the host.
Starodubtseva, currently 20th nationally, is the highest ranked singles player from Conference USA. She was named Conference USA Player of the Year, Outstanding Singles Player and Doubles Tandem of the Conference Tournament, along with First Team All-Conference in singles and doubles. On the year she is 28-5 in singles and 20-1 this spring.
"Yuliia's final season in ODU colors, representing us as our team captain and top player has been an honor to be a part of. The sky is her ceiling, and I am anxious to see her compete in the singles draw," said ODU Head Coach Dominic Manilla.
The doubles tandem of Starodubtseva-Sasnouskaya was ranked number one nationally in February and are currently eighth with a 30-6 overall record and a 12-3 mark this spring. They took second place at ITA All-American and ITA Fall National Championship, while winning the ITA Atlantic Super Regional. They recorded win over the top-ranked duo from Oklahoma in fall. Rolled through C-USA Tournament dropping only six games in three matches.
"Being selected to compete in the NCAA Individual Championships is very special. Both Tanya and Yuliia have had such a remarkable season. It's been so exciting to witness and our expectations for this doubles team are high," said Manilla
All matches at the NCAA Championships will be the best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and a 7-point tiebreaker (first to seven points, must win by two points) at six-games-all will be used for all matches. In doubles, a 10-point match tiebreaker will be played in lieu of a third set.
Automatic qualification into the Division I singles championship is awarded to any conference with one or more eligible singles players ranked in the ITA Top 125 for eligible/entered singles players. For conferences with more than one singles player within the ITA Top 125 eligible/entered singles players, the subcommittee applies the NCAA selection criteria to determine which student-athlete is the automatic qualifier from those conferences. All singles players must have a minimum of 13 started singles matches, with six matches in the spring, in order to be selected as an automatic qualifier or an at-large selection.
Sasnouskaya, Starodubtseva Earn Automatic Bids To NCAA Tournament
