WKU Tennis Beats Middle Tennessee for the Second Time in Program History

Saturday, April 9

Bowling Green, KY

1:30 PM

Western Kentucky University

Middle Tennessee

Photo by: Gunnar Word/WKU Athletics

WKU Tennis Beats Middle Tennessee for the Second Time in Program History

4/9/2022 6:38:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Box Score Photo Gallery

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — WKU Tennis continued its 2022 season Saturday afternoon with a Conference USA match against the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.

The Lady Toppers defeated the Blue Raiders at home on Saturday to improve 16-8 on the campaign. This win marks the first conference win for the Tops this season. WKU currently holds the second most conference wins of all the teams in Conference USA.

The doubles point came down to the wire after WKU won the match on Court 1 and Middle Tennessee claimed the match on Court 2. The No. 1 pair of Cora-Lynn von Dungern and Paola Cortez took care of business for the 16th time this season, winning 6-2 and improving to 16-3 on the year. After Middle Tennessee won the Court 2 match, the Court 3 match went to a tiebreaker. The No. 3 duo of Sofia Blanco and Samantha Martinez won an exhilarating, back-and-forth match that needed extra tiebreaker points to be decided, winning 7-6 (7) to give the Lady Toppers the early 1-0 lead.

Going into singles, WKU only needed three wins to claim the match and they did just that.

Cora-Lynn von Dungern was the first to finish, winning on Court 1, 6-1, 6-0. This was her third straight win, all coming in straight sets. Her doubles partner, Paola Cortez followed up her performance with a straight set win on Court 3, winning 6-1, 6-2. She improved to 14-8 on the season, good for the second-best singles record on the team. Down 3-0, the Blue Raiders made up some ground, winning on Court 6 and Court 4, both in straight sets. This made the score 3-2. To give the Lady Toppers the win, Sofia Blanco took the victory on Court 5, 6-4, 6-1. She recorded her sixth singles win in 10 matches on the season. This win gave WKU its fourth point, to clinch the match.

The final match to finish was on Court 2, going in favor of the Blue Raiders. This made the final score 4-3.

"That is probably one of our biggest wins, by far since I have been here. Middle is a good team. They had a good win over Ball State earlier this year. They had a very good win beating Samford, 6-1. I mentioned to the team yesterday that doubles is going to be the key." head coach Greg Davis said. "We did a really good job getting up 5-2 on all three courts in doubles. We were in a tough spot at three and we pulled it out. I thought Sam and Sofia did a great job keeping their composure and helping us get that doubles point. Singles wise, we had tremendous effort from Cora, Paola and then Sofia to clinch it at five. Really proud of the team. This is going to help us with our seeding at the conference tournament in a couple weeks. We are hoping to have a big crowd for senior day, starting with our ceremony tomorrow at 9:45 a.m."

WKU finishes its home schedule tomorrow against Saint Louis on Sunday, April 10. The match will begin at 11 a.m. with senior day festivities beginning at 9:45 a.m. and will be played at the WKU Tennis Complex on South Campus.

Final Results
Singles (Order of finish: 1,3,6,4,5,2)
1: Cora-Lynn von Dungern (WKU) def. Lee Barnard (]MTSU) 6-1, 6-0
2: Muskan Gupta (MTSU) def. Laura Bernardos (WKU) 6-4, 6-4
3: Paola Cortez (WKU) def. Love-Star Alexis (MTSU) 6-1, 6-2
4: Zani Barnard (MTSU) def. Rachel Hermanova (WKU) 6-4, 6-3
5: Sofia Blanco (WKU) def. Noelle Mauro (MTSU) 6-4, 6-1
6: Lilly-Sophie Schmidt (MTSU) def. Samantha Martinez (WKU) 6-2, 6-1

Doubles (Order of finish 1,2,3)
1: Cortez/von Dungern (WKU) def. Barnard/Mauro (MTSU) 6-2
2: Barnard/Alexis (MTSU) def. Bernardos/Zegada (WKU) 7-5
3: Blanco/Martinez (WKU) def. Swarbrick/Gupta (MTSU) 7-6 (7)