The Idaho women’s tennis team went 2-1 over the weekend, improving its record to 16-4 on the season.
Parker Wilson | Argonaut
Galina Bykova prepares to fire a serve at her practice partner during a practice at the courts near Memorial Gym.
After a 5-2 win on Friday against UTEP, a team coached by former Idaho coach Myriam Sopel, the team traveled from El Paso, Texas, to Las Cruces, N.M., to face Arkansas State and New Mexico State.
Idaho picked up another 5-2 victory over Arkansas State Saturday, before dropping the final match of the weekend 4-3 against the Aggies Sunday.
“No loss is good,” Idaho coach Jeff Beaman said. “But it’s pretty easy to get a little stale and happy with winning and this loss should hurt. It’s a rough loss.”
The Vandals won the doubles point, winning all three matches. Idaho senior Victoria Lozano and freshman Galina Bykova each won singles matches 6-2, 6-3 and 6-4,
6-2 respectively. It was the Aggies, though, who clinched the win in the tiebreaker of the final match.
“It was a good competition,” Lozano said. “Overall, it was a good weekend and we have a chance to play them again in two weeks — so it’ll be our chance to beat them.”
“We came out really strong in the doubles,” Beaman said. “The reason we played these three matches was to get used to the conditions. The one good thing about why we did this is hopefully we get a shot to play them (NMSU) Sunday after next.”
Despite the bitter taste of Sunday’s defeat, the Vandals earned wins in the previous two matches of the weekend tripleheader.
“They (Arkansas State) have a tough team,” Beaman said. “We put ourselves in a big hole at No. 1 doubles and Vickie and Almu (Sanz) really pulled it out and came back from a big hole. I think that really help set the tone for the match in terms of confidence and took a bit of the nerves away.”
In about two weeks, the WAC Tournament champion will be crowned on the same courts the Vandals played on in Las Cruces.
“This time of year, everyone’s a little banged up,” Beaman said. “In about two weeks from now, they want to be the one celebrating the conference tournament. We’ll take this loss, push ourselves and learn from it.”
The weekend matches featured 20 to 30 mph winds, something Idaho will have to get adjusted to.
“In Texas, it was very windy, very dry and hot,” Lozano said. “Then we came from El Paso to New Mexico to get even more adjusted to the conditions. We’re definitely looking forward to the WAC Tournament.”
Idaho will host the Oregon Ducks on Thursday for Senior Day at home before traveling to Missoula, Mont., for its regular season finale against Montana.
Conor Gleason can be reached at [email protected]