The Drake women’s tennis team started a two-match weekend with a Friday night matchup against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers on Friday, Jan. 26. 

To open the match, Drake secured a 6-4 win in doubles one, taking the first step towards securing the doubles point. At doubles two for Drake, Ines Stephani and Rebecca Ehn clinched the doubles point with a 7-5 victory.

Heading into singles, Stepahni got a quick singles point for Drake after winning her match 6-1, 6-0. At the singles three spot, Elizabete Klavinska got a 6-4, 6-2 win, adding another point to the team score. With a 3-0 Drake lead in the team score, Nicole Lee brought home a fourth point for Drake in her singles match. 

The format for the match was to play “clinch clinch,” meaning that once one team received a total of four points, the match would be over. Therefore, after Drake reached four total team points, the rest of the matches were abandoned, and Drake was declared the winner. 

The Bulldogs then traveled to Marquette University to compete on Sunday, Jan. 28. Drake’s doubles two team got another win for Drake, and doubles three with Klavinska and Lee clinched the doubles point for Drake, allowing the Bulldogs to lead 1-0 in the team score. At singles 4, Ehn brought in the first singles point for Drake after getting a 6-4, 6-0 win. 

Klavinska increased the team score to 3-0 for Drake after a 6-0, 6-3 win for the Bulldogs in her singles set. After four more singles wins, Drake took a 7-0 win over Marquette. 

“I think as a team we bounced back well from last weekend,” Mille Haagensen said. “It was great to be able to get both our first home win and away win of the season as well as get a few sweeps. I’m proud of how the team has been putting in a lot of work as practice, and I’m looking forward to seeing how next weekend goes for us.” 

Thanks to their first shutout win on the weekend over Milwaukee, the Bulldogs were able to head into their first away game of the season with heavy momentum. 

“We went out there on Sunday and took care of business,” Ehn said. “We definitely used the momentum that we had from Friday’s match and brought it against Marquette. I like how we competed as a team, and I’m excited to see how our future matches go.”  

After the dominant weekend, the women’s tennis team improved their overall record to 2-2. The following weekend, the team took on the University of Nebraska Omaha Mavericks, the Montana State University Bobcats and the University of South Dakota Coyotes. 

Against Omaha, the team continued their dominant play and secured a 6-1 victory at home. The team then traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where they played the Bobcats and the Coyotes. The team would fall short in both matches, losing to the Bobcats 4-3 and to the Coyotes 4-3. 

The team’s current record stands at 3-4 overall, and they look to make a course correction against the University of Iowa Hawkeyes on Feb. 18.