Last weekend, Bradley tennis dropped a 5-2 decision to Southeast Missouri State to continue its seesaw-like performances this season. With Friday’s result, the Braves have split their last four matches.
“This match for us was about as good as we can feel about a loss,” Tyler said. “They were Ohio Valley champions last year, but we played them really tough. There were several points in that match where I thought we could win. There were a lot of positives in that match even if it was a loss.”
Starting off the doubles matches was the freshman-junior combo of Madi Rogers and Alexandra Hildreth. The duo was ousted 6-1, while the other freshman-junior combo of Anna Belogliadova and Maria Bezmenova didn’t get much closer in their 6-3 loss.
Hoping to take at least one match, junior Madalena Andrade and sophomore Kirstin Hailey were unsuccessful in their bid for victory and lost in a tight 7-6 decision. After losing all three doubles matches, Braves’ head coach Matt Tyler didn’t think their approach was the reason why they failed to pick one up.
“The things we are working on right now is our consistency,” Tyler said. “[Things like] putting more balls into better places. I’m confident the work we do this week will pay off for us.”
While hoping to recover in the singles matches, Bradley didn’t have much of anything go their way.
Belogliadova lost both of her sets 6-3, 6-1 and Hailey dropped both of hers as well by scores of 6-2, 7-6 but the Braves did pick up a few wins.
Bezmenova finished off Bradley’s first point thanks to a close 7-6 win in her first set that ultimately led her to a 6-3 win in the following action. Freshman Mariia Pukhina also grabbed a win by staving off her Redhawk opponent in both sets. Pukhina took the first by a 7-6 final and the second by a 7-5 margin.
In the only three-game set of the weekend, Andrade started with a 6-3 win in her first singles set but dropped the final two 6-3, 6-4. Hildreth closed out the action with similar 6-2, 6-3 defeats. Tyler gave insight afterwards on what goes into a third-set match and how this affects the Braves’ season.
“It depends a lot on if we won or lost the second set,” Tyler said. “If they win the second set, we let them do their thing. If they lose the second set, we evaluate what they did in the first set and see how they can now replicate that in the third set.”
Bradley will hope to swing the momentum back when they travel to Macomb, Illinois, to face Western Illinois this Saturday.
