The Texas A&M women’s tennis team returns to the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center on Friday to play host to Texas State and Sam Houston State in a doubleheader. The match against the Bobcats begins at noon, and first serve against the Bearkats is at 4 p.m.
General admission seating is free. Stadium Club season tickets, valid for all men’s and women’s regular-season home matches, are available for purchase athttps://aggi.es/2D87J8f.
“Coach Szabo and I are excited to see the team compete once again after almost two weeks off since our last match,” said Mark Weaver, who is in his third season as head coach of the Aggies. “I feel that we played relatively well in our home opener, and we have had some very good practices since then. We are making some very good improvements where we needed them, and we are continuing to get better and better each and every day.”
The Aggies are 2-0 after defeating both University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and Prairie View A&M, 7-0, in the season-opening doubleheader on Jan. 13 at the Mitchell Tennis Center. The Aggies did not drop a set in either match.
Senior Macarena Olivares is riding a team-best five-matching winning streak in singles and leads the Aggies in singles victories with a 12-5 overall record, including a 2-0 record at the No. 2 court in dual match play. Senior Domenica Gonzalez, 2-0 at the No. 1 singles line, is riding a four-match win streak, as is senior Eva Paalma, who is 2-0 at No. 3. Freshmen Riley McQuaid and Dorthea Faa-Hviding are is 2-0 at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, and freshman Iulia Ivascu is 1-0 at No. 6.
In doubles, Gonzalez and Paalma are 11-3 overall and are riding a five-match winning streak. They are 2-0 at the No. 1 line, and Ivascu and Olivares are 2-0 at No. 2.
Texas State will be aiming for its first victory of the season. The Bobcats are 0-1 after a 4-0 season-opening loss at No. 12 Texas on Jan. 20.
SHSU is 1-0, having defeated Prairie View A&M, 6-1, on Jan. 19 in Huntsville. A&M tennis fans will notice a familiar face wearing the Bearkats’ white and orange as former Aggie All-American Saska Gavrilovska is in her first season as an assistant coach at SHSU.
A&M is 18-0 in the all-time series against Texas State since the teams first met in 1980. Most recently, the Aggies defeated the Bobcats, 7-0, on Feb. 2, 2008, at the Mitchell Tennis Center. It was A&M’s seventh consecutive shutout against the school then known as Southwest Texas State.
A&M is 8-0 all-time against SHSU, with all matches having been contested in College Station. Most recently, the Aggie posted their fourth consecutive 7-0 shutout against the Bearkats on Feb. 16, 2014, at the Mitchell Tennis Center.
The matches against Texas State and SHSU are part of a seven-match, season-opening homestand for the Aggies. A&M returns to the courts on Saturday, Feb. 3, to play host to Liberty and Stephen F. Austin in a doubleheader starting at noon at the Mitchell Tennis Center.
