Earning seven combined match wins in singles and doubles action Thursday at the 2022 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Ohio Valley Regional Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Belmont University women's tennis team put together several strong performances on the hard court. Freshman sensation Mariia Hlahola continued her strong fall play as she advanced to the round of 32 in the singles main draw and the duo of Hlahola and sophomore Anastasiya Zholdakova reached the doubles main draw.
The Bruins won a pair of doubles matches in the B flight and a trio of singles matches in the B flight's round of 64.
Hlahola, a native of Kyiv, Ukraine, defeated Purdue's Kennedy Gibbs 6-4, 6-3 in the opening round of the main draw and will face Memphis' Aran Teixido-Garcia Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. CT/11:30 a.m. ET in the round of 32 at Tyson Park.
In doubles, Hlahola and Zholdakova topped Xavier's Emily Flowers and Pualina Franco 8-4 in the second round of qualifying Thursday morning to reach the late afternoon's main draw round of 32, where they bowed out to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Caroline Gibbens and Jessie Young 8-6.
In the round of 32 of the doubles B flight, the sophomore tandem of Viktoria Kliimand and Abi Solomon bested Dayton's Elizabeth Hamilton and Laura Greb, while graduate student Meredith Roberts and senior Taylor Trondson topped Eastern Kentucky's Daniela Hernandez and Emmeline Polevoi 8-5. Kliimand and Solomon will take on Austin Peay's Asia Fontana and Lucy Lascheck Friday at 3 p.m. CT/4 p.m. ET at Tyson Park as Roberts and Trondson go up against Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis' Marta Krakowski and Emma Dell.
Zholdakova made easy work of the Colonels' Sasha Parkhomenko, 6-4, 6-2, in the B flight's round of 64 and Solomon won just as convincingly with a 6-3, 6-1 B flight first round victory over Emilia Valentinsson of Miami University (Ohio). Freshman Libbie Hamilton won a battle of identical last names against Dayton's Elizabeth Hamilton, clinching the match in a third-set super tiebreaker, 10-6.
On Friday, Hamilton will see East Tennessee State University's Mariya Shumeika inside the University of Tennessee's Goodfriend Indoor Tennis Center at 11:30 a.m. CT/12:30 p.m. ET. Both Zholdakova and Solomon will play at 1 p.m. CT/2 p.m. ET Friday with Zholdakova taking on the Flyers' Greb indoors at the Goodfriend Tennis Center and Solomon facing IUPUI's Meghan Bernard at Tyson Park.
Kliimand nearly got past Northern Kentucky's Mariajose Hernandez in the first round of the B flight but fell 13-11 in the third-set super tiebreaker after each won a 6-3 set. Likewise, Trondson was barely edged in a third-set breaker, falling to the Governors' Ayden Kujawa 10-7. Sophomore Aly Getty also took Butler's Chase Metcalf to a third set after winning the opening set 6-3 but was defeated 10-6 in the tiebreaker.
All matches played on Tennessee's campus will have both live stats and live streaming.
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