The Valparaiso University tennis team continued ITA Midwest Regional competition in Urbana-Champaign, Ill. on Friday.
Lacey Tanner (Fort Pierce, Fla. / Florida Virtual School) and
Brynn Steven (Wichita, Kan. / Bishop Carroll) won their opening-round doubles match to highlight the Beacon action.
How It Happened
- In the doubles main draw, Tanner and Steven captured a first-round victory over the Eastern Michigan pair of Lara Diaz Zayas and Kseniia Saenko, taking the match 8-3.
- Tanner and Steven advanced to a second-round match and put together a close battle against Big Ten opponents, falling to Illinois' Cara Mester and Alice Xu 8-6.
- The doubles tandem of Alexandra Popa (Glenview, Ill. / Glenbrook South) and Cathy Beckmann (Indianapolis, Ind. / Bishop Chatard) played a conference foe in UIC's Dongke Liu and Kristina Tai, falling 8-4 in the first round of main draw doubles.
- In the singles main draw, Tanner faced off with Illinois' Tess Bucher and was very competitive in the second set, dropping the match 6-0, 7-5.
Inside the Matches
- Tanner picked up her fifth doubles win of the season, as did Steven.
- The doubles win came over a pair that featured Saenko, who has won Mid-American Conference All-Tournament team, and multiple MAC weekly awards in her career at Eastern Michigan.
- Tanner and Steven fell to the No. 11 seeds, Mester and Xu. Mester led the Illini with 18 doubles wins last season, while Xu had 16 doubles triumphs including three against nationally-ranked opponents.
- Tanner's singles match was against Bucher, a former 5-star recruit by tennisrecruiting.com.
Thoughts from Head Coach James Gleghorn
"It was a good day for Valpo in doubles as Lacey and Brynn beat a strong Eastern Michigan University team 8-3. Popa and Beckman lost after having a 4-3 lead, but played really well at times. In the round of 32, Lacey and Brynn lost 8-6 to the number 11 seeds from Illinois. It was a tremendous match against a top-50 level opponent. Amazing day of play."
"In singles, Lacey came out slowly but really played well in the second set, losing 7-5 to a tough University of Illinois player who was top-60 in the country coming out of high school. A quality outing for Valpo!"
