Neither of the Braves’ tennis matchups on the road over the weekend went the way of the visitors, who lost to the Beacons 4-3 and dropped their fourth straight match against the Flames 7-0.
The doubles round against Valparaiso started off with a 6-1 loss for the team of freshman Mariia Pukhina and junior Alex Hildreth. The junior-sophomore mix of Madalena Andrade and Kirstin Hailey fell short in their 6-2 defeat, but the duo of Anna Beloglaidova and Maria Bezmenova took a 7-5 contest.
After losing the doubles point, the singles competition didn’t start much better. Belogliadova lost both sets 6-0 and Pukhina followed up with a 6-1, 6-2 defeat, setting Bradley behind early.
The Braves got their first singles win of the day with Hildreth taking straight sets 6-4, 6-1. Andrade received the next point when she became victorious in her two sets, winning 6-4, 7-5. Hailey was next in line and played a competitive three-set match to potentially tie up the score for Bradley. She lost the first set 6-2, won 6-0 in the second set, but was unsuccessful as the Beacons clinched the game with a heartbreaking 7-6 Bradley defeat in the third set.
“Kristin [Hailey] has played so much tennis that those matches have gone our way many times, but sometimes they don’t though,” head coach Matt Tyler said. “[She] was playing well but her opponent stepped up and played really well to win that set.”
Despite already clinching defeat, Bradley continued to tighten the score. Andrade followed up with another point for the Braves, victorious in straight sets. Bezmenova proceeded to win her singles match in another competitive fashion, 7-6, 6-4, then 6-4.
Following the slim defeat, Bradley jumped to Chicago for a battle with the Illinois-Chicago Flames.
Pukhina and Hildreth were defeated 6-1, 6-1 followed by Andrade and Hailey, who lost by the same score in doubles.
“I think we need to win a few doubles points,” Tyler said. “Especially the Valpo match, the doubles point wins that match. [We need to] try to stay the course and do stuff different, turn the chapter a bit.”
Singles matches had Belogliadova losing 6-3, 6-1 and Hailey lost in straight sets as well. Andrade had a closer all-around loss of two 6-3 losses. Bezmenova came back a bit in her second set, but still lost 6-2, 6-4. Hildreth had an almost symmetrical match with Andrade but lost 6-2 twice instead. Lastly, Pukhina almost won her first set losing 7-6, but couldn’t keep that going in the second set losing 6-0.
“Valpo took a lot out of us, it was a hard situation for us to bounce back in,” Tyler said. “I have to give UIC a lot of credit, they played well. Unfortunately, we got outplayed Sunday.”
Bradley will finish up the regular season on the road at Belmont this Sunday.
