ERAU Women’s Tennis Secures Semifinal Berth With Shutout of Lindsey Wilson
MOBILE, Ala. – The Embry-Riddle women’s tennis team will be making the program’s second ever appearance in the NAIA National Tournament semifinals. The third-seeded Eagles (22-3), who played in their first semifinal match a year ago, advanced after earning a 5-0 shutout against No. 11 Lindsey Wilson (17-4), Thursday at the Copeland-Cox Tennis Complex. ERAU will play second seed Fresno Pacific when semifinal action gets underway at 9 a.m. (CST) on Friday.
It took just under 40 minutes for Kristina Marova and Paola Montero to grab an 8-0 doubles win over Gaprindashvili and Rocio Cardo to give the Blue and Gold its first point of the day. Rocio Frej Vitalle and Ekaterina Kamendova followed with an 8-3 win over Diana Gerlakh and Laura Vergara at the second doubles position.
Playing at No. 1 singles, Yi Ching Chen and Josefine Strom took a 7-3 lead against Trina Slapeka and Slavica Milanovic and had the chance to serve for the win, but were broken by the LWC pair. After switching sides, the ERAU duo regrouped and broke Slapeka and Milanovic to take the match and give the Eagles a 3-0 advantage heading into singles.
The first singles match off the court took just 41 minutes to reach completion as Frej Vitalle blanked Gerlakh 6-0, 6-0 to extend the Eagles’ cushion to 4-0. On court six, Montero surrendered just one game on the way to a 6-0, 6-1 defeat of Cardo to seal the Eagle victory.