TCU Women’s Tennis Wins Mountain West
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FORT WORTH – TCU’s women’s tennis team knocked off New Mexico, 6-1, on Saturday at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center to win the Mountain West regular season championship.
The regular season title is the third in TCU’s seven years in the league and first since 2008. TCU also won the regular season crown in 2006, its first season of competition in the Mountain West. With the win, TCU clinched the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye at the Mountain West Women’s Tennis Championship, which begins April 26 in San Diego.
No. 38-ranked TCU improved to 15-5 on the year and closed the conference season at 7-0. New Mexico dropped to 8-11 and 1-6. The win was also the 100th in Dave Borelli’s career as the women’s head coach at TCU. He joins Roland Ingram as the only TCU women’s tennis coaches with at least 100 victories.
The Horned Frogs opened the match wins on all three of the doubles courts. TCU’s No. 2 duo of Federica Denti and Kelsey Sundaram struck first, scoring an 8-0 win over Kristin Eggleston and Laura Richardson. Gabi Barbosa and Gaby Mastromarino followed with an 8-4 triumph of Alyssa Caffey and Michaela Oldani to put the home team ahead 1-0.
TCU’s No. 1 tandem of Millie Nichols and Olivia Smith continued their recent trend of solid play with an 8-5 bettering of Michaela Bezdickova and Maria Sablina. Nichols and Smith, the nation’s No. 72-ranked duo, won its third in a row and improved to 9-3 this spring.
As singles got going, it was Denti who was first off the court for the Frogs after she dropped Caffey, 6-0, 6-0 at the No. 3 spot. Soon after, Barbosa followed suit as she took down Nikolina Grbac, 6-0, 6-0 at No. 6 singles to give TCU a 3-0 advantage.
Smith clinched the conference title for the Frogs when she took care of Sablina, 6-1, 6-4 at No. 2 singles. Nichols made it 5-0 in favor of TCU moments later with a 6-3, 6-1 dismantling of Eggleston on court No. 4.
Mastromarino added TCU’s sixth and final point on the day with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Oldani at No. 5 singles.
TCU closes the regular season portion of its schedule Sunday when Rice visits the Friedman Tennis Center. First serve is set for 2 p.m. Prior to the match, TCU will honor Mastromarino, its lone senior.
