The BYU women’s tennis team opened up its West Coast Conference schedule with a 5–2 victory over Portland Wednesday afternoon at the indoor tennis courts.
“It’s very important going into conference play and get that first win,” BYU coach Lauren Jones-Spencer said. “The girls played well, and hopefully that will help us going into this weekend.”
With the win BYU (7–5, 1–0 WCC) moves to 5–1 at home this season.
Doubles play was important again for the Cougars; they have relied heavily on picking up the doubles point for their success this season.
Senior Aubrey Paul and junior Desiree Tran cruised to an 8–2 victory over Portland’s Maja Mladenovic and Emily Gould. Sophomore Morgan Anderson and freshman Mackenna Maddox solidified the point for BYU with their 8–3 win over Saroop Dhatt and Tori Tresch. With the doubles point already secured, sophomore Meghan Sheehan-Dizon and freshman Nicolette Tran picked up a third win, 8–5, for the Cougars against Sabine Fuchs and Anastasia Polyakova.
Portland rebounded strongly from its three doubles losses and opened up singles play with two convincing victories.
Mladenovic got the Pilots on the scoreboard in her straight sets victory over Desiree Tran in the No. 1 position. Desiree Tran has been struggling as of late, and those strugglings continued as she fell to Mladenovic 4–6, 2–6.
Polyakova then gave Portland the 2–1 lead with her straight sets victory over Anderson. Polyakova had to hold off a determined Anderson in the first set but cruised the rest of the way.
Down 2–1 with four players still playing, the Cougars picked up the intensity and reeled off three consecutive wins.
Nicolette Tran continued her impressive play with a 6–4, 7–5 win over Troesch. With the win Tran improved her singles record to 8–4 and tied the score at 2–2.
On Court 3 Sheehan-Dizon and Fuchs went to three sets before Sheehan-Dizon eventually came away with the win. Losing the first set 6–1 was a wake-up call for the Cougar sophomore, who came back to win sets two and three 6–1.
“The first set she came out really strong and was winning a lot of the points,” Sheehan-Dizon said. “I knew I just needed to play my game, and that’s what I did the next two sets and came out with the win.”
Up 3–2 the Cougars needed just one more point from the remaining two matches to secure the overall win, and they ended up picking up wins in both matches.
Paul picked up her team-leading ninth win of the season in her match against Portland’s Gould. She won the first set 6–2 before securing her win and the team’s win with a 6–0 second set.
Maddox closed out the match for the Cougars by defeating Dhatt 6–4, 6–1.
BYU will travel to California to play San Francisco on Friday and San Diego on Saturday.
