COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Sept. 13, 2019) - Mihaela Kaftanova picked up a singles win to move to 2-0 on the young fall season and the doubles team of Ana Fernandez and Ana Royo had a pair of doubles victories to highlight the Cowgirl tennis team's day two at the ITA Bedford Cup.
"It was a really good second day. We started implementing some more of the things we've worked on and playing our tennis in the Cowgirl Way," said head coach Dean Clower.
Kaftanova defeated Air Force's Courtney Swift 6-4, 6-4 to remain in the main draw and will face New Mexico's Yue Lin Chen Saturday in the semifinals.
Fernandez and Royo began doubles play with an 8-6 win over Alex Kuo and Swift of Air Force and then closed the day with an 8-7(4) win over Northern Arizona's Elinor Beazley and Mimi Bland. Next up, the duo will face Colorado State's Anastasiia Kotsyuba and Riley Reeves.
The duo of Zarah Mughal and Maria Oreshkina went 1-1 in doubles play on the day. Mughal and Oreshkina opened the day with an impressive 8-2 win over AFA's Mebeli Becerra and Abby Warner, before dropping an 8-6 match to the Air Force team of Shailla Alda and Sydney Fitch.
Oleksandra Balaba and Ida Krause also opened their doubles play with a win, defeating Southern Utah's Chloe Purkiss and Zoe Tanti, 8-3. In their second match, Balaba and Krause lost a hard-fought match, 8-6, to Ashleigh Harvey and Nadeen Lieberman of Air Force.
The doubles team of Clara Mansart and Kaftanova lost their first match to Montana State's Linnea Fristam and Caitlin Ward, 8-4 before rebounding with an 8-5 win later in the day against SUU's Daniela Cozzi and Jessica Stefan.
In the Alpha singles back draw, Balaba and Krause both rebounded with victories. Balaba won a thriller (6-3, 0-6 and 10-6) over Northern Colorado's Raffa Mora and will face Kotsyuba of CSU tomorrow. Krause also won in three, hard-fought sets. After dropping the first set 6-7(4) to UNC's Milena Belianovich, Krause took set two 6-0 and won the tiebreak, 10-7.
In the Bravo back draw, Mansart and Mughal both one their lone singles matches of the day. Mansart made quick work of NAU's Sydney Roman, 6-1 and 6-1. While Mughal took a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Elinor Beazley, also of Northern Arizona.
"The freshman stepped up," said Clower.
"We were much improved from day one. We're getting better."
Fernandez, who had two doubles wins earlier in the day, lost in her back draw match to Meredith Jones of Air Force, 6-2 and 6-2.
The Cowgirls will return to action at the Bedford Cup tomorrow in Colorado Springs for day three of the event.
-WYO-
