Women's Tennis Defeats Central Arkansas 5-1 Saturday in Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Improving to 2-1 on the young season, the Belmont University women's tennis team quickly recovered from its 5-2 setback Friday with a 5-1 win over visiting Central Arkansas Saturday at the Ensworth Tennis Center. Earning four singles wins, the Bruins were victorious No. 1 and No. 3 doubles to capture the all-important doubles point.
 
Belmont was dominant in the bottom half of the singles lineup, dropping only nine combined games in three straight-set wins.
 
The doubles tandem of sophomore Anastasiya Zholdakova and graduate student Meredith Roberts clinched the doubles point at No. 3 doubles with a 6-3 win over the Bears' Ting-An Chen and Konomi Miyakawa. The Bruins took the top doubles spot as the freshman/sophomore duo of Mariia Hlahola and Abi Solomon cruised to a 6-2 win against Central Arkansas' Nanoka Kazama and Sumomo Hamanaga.
 
The Bears (0-3) earned one of their two match wins on the day at No. 2 doubles where Jaeun Lee and Nicole Ross topped senior Taylor Trondson and sophomore Viktoria Kliimand 6-4.
 
Both Hlahola and Trondson wasted little time in putting Belmont up 3-0 with 6-0, 6-1 and 6-3, 6-0 wins at No. 1 and No. 6 singles, respectively. Kliimand then clinched the indoor victory at No. 4 singles as she dismissed Central Arkansas' Kazama by a 6-2, 6-3 score.
 
Roberts made it 5-0 with a convincing 6-0, 6-1 win over the Bears' Chen at No. 5 singles.
 
Central Arkansas' lone singles win came at the second spot where Lee edged out Solomon in a third set super tiebreak. Lee evened the match at a set apiece with a 6-4 second set before claiming the 10-point breaker, 10-3.
 
Zholdakova was in a tightly-contested affair at No. 3 singles with the Bears' Hamanaga when the match was declared complete. After Zholdakova took the opening set 7-2 in a tiebreaker, the two went to another tiebreaker in the second set where Hamanaga prevailed, 7-4. Hamanaga led 8-4 in the third set super tiebreak.
 
Up Next
The Bruins have a week off from match action before returning to the Ensworth Tennis Center next weekend for a pair of home contests with East Tennessee State University and Western Kentucky. Belmont welcomes ETSU to the indoor courts next Saturday at 4 p.m. before taking on the Hilltoppers Sunday at 11 a.m. Live scoring will be available for both matches at BelmontBruins.com.
 
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