HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – Northern Kentucky's men's and women's tennis teams will host their first true home matches on Saturday, Jan. 28, after opening up the 2017 spring championship season by hosting St. Francis (Pa.) on Jan. 14 with Dayton, Ohio, serving as the host site. The Norse women will start the day's matches, taking on Dayton at 4 p.m. ET. The men's match versus Abilene Christian will follow at 7 p.m. Both matches will take place at NKU's indoor home site at Five Seasons Sports Club in Crestview Hills, Ky.
LAST TIME OUT: NKU split the season opener against St. Francis (Pa.), with the women claiming a 6-1 victory over the Red Flash while the men fell, 5-2. The Norse women clinched the match at 4-0 with a doubles point and wins at No. 5, 6 and 1 singles before playing out the remainder of the singles matches. NKU freshmen
Margita Sunjic and
Katja Dijanezevic started out their careers with wins, with Sunjic clinching the match in No. 1 singles with matching 6-2 sets over Laura Gutierrez, while Dijanezevic rallied for a tiebreak win in No. 3 singles over Raksha Bode, 6-3, 2-6, 1-0(9).
On the men's side, NKU's top doubles duo of Lukas Clemens and Mate Virag started off a season with a continuation of their fall success, as the pair went 8-1 with the only loss coming in the quarterfinals of the ITA Ohio Valley Regional. The pair, ranked No. 7 in the region, helped secure the opening point of the match with a 6-4 win over Alec Foo-Kune and Rodrigo Tico in No. 1 doubles. Virag went on to be the only Norse with a win in singles, winning over Foo-Kune in a hard-fought tiebreak in the top slot, 4-6, 6-0, 7-5. For their performances, Clemens and Virag were named the Horizon League Doubles Team of the Week, while Virag was honored as the Player of the Week.
SCOUTING DAYTON: The Flyers' women's squad started out the season with a loss, falling to Wright State in a 4-3 decision on Jan. 21. Dayton fell behind at the start by dropping the doubles point, but was able to claim wins in No. 1, 3 and 4 singles. Ultimately, splitting the singles matches resulted in an advantage for Wright State, which used a victory in the No. 6 slot to seal the win. Dayton returns its top-five players from last year, with a consistently played rotation in the No. 1-3 spots. Junior Marlys Bridgham returns to fill the top spot for the Flyers after playing in No. 1 singles and doubles for the entirety of the 2016 campaign. Senior Alex Townsend can be expected to play in No. 2 singles for the Flyers, while Mattea Kilstofte is likely to be the No. 3 player for Dayton. The Flyers will have a match on Friday night prior to taking on the Norse, hosting Eastern Illinois at 7 p.m.
The Norse and the Flyers squared off last year on March 18 in Dayton, where NKU came away with a 4-3 victory. The Norse started down a point after dropping the opening doubles contests, but used wins from in No. 1, 2, 3 and 6 singles to rally back for the win.
SCOUTING ABILENE CHRISTIAN: The Wildcats have had a busy season with seven matches so far, currently sitting at 4-3. Abilene Christian started off the year with a trio of staunch opponents, getting blanked 7-0 by then-No. 4 Texas, No. 12 Oklahoma and RV Southern Methodist, the latter of which recently made its way into the ITA Top 25 in the latest release. Since then, the Wildcats have gone on a 4-0 run after a successful two days in Colorado Springs, Colorado, against Air Force, Colorado State-Pueblo, Metro State and Northern Colorado.
Like NKU, Abilene Christian has made the transition from NCAA Division II to Division I, and is currently in the fourth year of transition. The Wildcats are still ineligible to compete in the NCAA postseason, and are also ineligible to compete in the Southland Conference Championship. Had the team been eligible for the conference postseason, it would have earned the No. 3 seed into the tournament after finishing third in the SLC last year. Regardless, ACU returns a wealth of talent from the previous year, including the 2016 SLC Newcomer of the Year and reigning Player of the Week Hunter Holman, the 2016 Freshman of the Year and Doubles First Team member Josh Sheehy, along with his doubles partner Sebastian Langdon, All-SLC First Team honoree Nico Agritelley and Doubles Second Team member Paul Domanski.
For more information on NKU's men's and women's tennis program, follow the team on Twitter @NKUNorseTennis or at facebook.com/nkunorsetennis.
