COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Sept. 14, 2019) – Wyoming advanced Mihaela Kaftanova into the championship match at Bravo singles and the duo of Ana Fernandez and Ana Royo will play for the title in the doubles bracket tomorrow as the Cowgirl Tennis team had a solid day three at the ITA Bedford Cup hosted by the Air Force Academy.

"It was a good day for Cowgirl tennis, especially regarding the development of our young team," said head coach Dean Clower.

Kaftanova, who is now 3-0 at the tournament, defeated New Mexico's Yue Lin Chen, 6-3 and 6-2 and will face Hsiang-Wen Huang of UNM in tomorrow's finals matchup.

Fernandez and Royo made it to the final match behind the strength of an 8-3 win Saturday over Colorado State's duo of Anastasiia Kotsyuba and Riley Reeves. Fernandez and Royo will now face New Mexico's Huang and Alisia Manolescu in the finals.

"I thought we came out with a lot of fire in doubles and began executing a lot of our structures. Mihaela (Kaftanova) and Ida (Krause) really showed our younger players our style of tennis and who we are."

Two other doubles teams, Clara Mansart and Kaftanova and Zarah Mughal and Maria Oreshkina also picked up wins Saturday. Mansart and Kaftanova won 8-4 over the UNM team of Sara Kuuttila-Webbert and Danielle Quevedo. Mughal and Oreshkina won impressively, 8-2 over Air Force's Alex Kuo and Courtney Swift.

Rounding out the doubles play for the Cowgirls was Oleksandra Balaba and Ida Krause, who lost to Northern Arizona's Ellie Millard and Chiara Tomasetti, 8-4.

On the singles side of things, both Mansart and Mughal grabbed victories and will now face one another in the consolations finals Sunday. Mansart took a 6-4, 6-0 win over Southern Utah's Tascon Dois, while Mughal had a nice 6-1 and 6-0 win over Northern Colorado's Elisabeth Walsh.

Oreshkina was the other Cowgirl with a singles victory Saturday as she defeated Southern Utah's Alexandra Ngo in a solid, 6-1, 6-0 win.

Balaba, Fernandez and Royo all lost their lone singles matches on day three. Balaba lost a tough three-setter to Mora of UNC, losing 6-3, 0-6 and 10-6. Fernandez meanwhile lost to Warner of AFA in three sets as well, 3-6, 6-4 and 10-3. Royo lost 6-3 and 6-2 to CSU's Emily Luetschwager.

One round each of doubles and singles will be played Sunday to finish off the four-day tournament for the Cowgirls.

-WYO-