Women's Tennis Captures Top Singles and Doubles Titles Sunday at MVC Individual Championships

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – For the second-straight year, the Belmont University women's tennis team is returning from Springfield, Missouri, with a pair of Missouri Valley Conference individual titles. Sophomore Mariia Hlahola met little resistance in repeating as the top singles champion, while Hlahola and junior Anastasiya Zholdakova won the No. 1 doubles flight Sunday at the 2023 MVC Individual Championships hosted by Missouri State at the Cooper Tennis Complex.
 
Last October, Zholdakova took home the No. 3 doubles flight title with Meredith Roberts.
 
Freshman Vesa Gjinaj also clinched third place in the No. 2 singles flight Sunday with a convincing win and sophomore Libbie Hamilton secured fifth place in the No. 6 singles flight.
 
Beginning the morning, Hlahola and Zholdakova defeated Drake's Ines Stephani and Oriana Parkins-Godwin by the smallest of margins in the top doubles final. The tandem prevailed 11-9 in a tiebreaker to earn the championship.
 
Hlahola followed up the highly-competitive doubles match with a dominant victory against the reigning Valley Player of the Year. She cruised past the Bulldogs' Stephani 6-2, 6-3 in the No. 1 singles final.
 
In the third-place match of the No. 2 singles flight, Gjinaj handily dismissed the host Bears' Mary Houston 6-0, 6-3. Hamilton had a much closer contest in the fifth-place match of the No. 6 singles flight where she gutted out a 7-6 (4), 6-4 win over Drake's Nicole Lee.
 
Junior Aly Getty took Bradley's Mariia Pukhina to three sets in the fifth-place match of the No. 5 singles flight but was unable to clinch the 10-point super tiebreak after winning the second set, 6-1.
 
The Bruins' full results from the third and final day of the MVC Individual Championships can be found below.
 
No. 1 Doubles Flight
Mariia Hlahola/Anastasiya Zholdakova (Belmont) def. Ines Stephani/Oriana Parkins-Godwin (Drake) 8-7 (9)
 
No. 2 Doubles Flight
Camille Belberka/Tamara Malazonia (UIC) def. Vesa Gjinaj/Hana Sokolovic (Belmont) 8-1
 
No. 1 Singles Flight
Mariia Hlahola (Belmont) def. Ines Stephani (Drake) 6-2, 6-3
 
No. 2 Singles Flight
Vesa Gjinaj (Belmont) def. Mary Houston (Missouri State) 6-0, 6-3
 
No. 5 Singles Flight
Mariia Pukhina (Bradley) def. Aly Getty (Belmont) 6-3, 1-6, 10-4
 
No. 6 Singles Flight
Libbie Hamilton (Belmont) def. Nicole Lee (Drake) 7-6 (4), 6-4
 
Up Next
Belmont closes out its busy fall schedule following an 11-day break from tournament play with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Ohio Valley Regional Championships, hosted by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, Thursday-Monday, Oct. 19-23.
 
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