The No. 32 ranked Washington State women’s tennis team defeated Idaho in Pullman in Saturday by a score of 7-0.
Despite the loss, there were a few highlights in both singles and doubles play for the Vandals in their season opener.
In doubles, after not competing in the previous spring season, senior Montana transfer Constance Alexander won the first match with partner Rita Bermudez, 8-5 at No. 2 doubles to help the Vandals to a good early start.
At No. 1, Idaho’s Victoria Lozano and Almudena Sanz were unable to hold off WSU’s Andjela Kankaras and Ksenia Googe in an 8-5 loss. Charlotte Koning and Elizaveta Luzina took care of business in No. 3 doubles with an 8-4 win as well, resulting in a WSU doubles victory and 1-0 match lead heading into singles.
In singles play, Lozano fought hard rallying against one of the best singles players at WSU history, senior Liudmila Vasilieva from Yekaterinburg, Russia.
“She’s a really good player but I felt like I was attacking the ball, she was really on the defensive so that gave me time to make more winners, although I felt really good even though I lost,” Lozano said.
Lozano initially fell 6-3 in the first set but in the second set she was neck-and-neck with Vasilieva, exchanging the lead with her multiple times before losing 7-5.
“It’s a little bit funny because on the second set I was a little bit tired but mentally I kept telling myself I could do it and that I had to win, although in the end I didn’t I still played a lot better,” Lozano said.
To new head coach Myriam Sopel this might not be the toughest match of the season.
“It can always change,” Sopel said. “A lot of the teams we are going to play are really good. Division 1 tennis is obviously really good — it’s the first one so it’s definitely tough though.”
Although this is the second year in a row the Vandals have been swept by the cougars Sopel sees the loss as a learning experience for the team.
“It was a good preparation match to see what we have to work on and build on for the next few weeks for the next matches coming,” Sopel said.
The Vandals will be on the road next week playing three matches in one weekend. The team will start the road trip against the University of Oregon on Saturday and play two matches the next day, against Portland in the morning at Portland State later that night.
The team will need to get used to playing on the road, as they
will not return to Moscow until Wednesday, Mar. 6 to play Eastern Washington.
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]