The regular season is coming to a close for the Bradley women’s tennis team. The team has one more match remaining before the Missouri Valley Tournament next weekend.
Bradley’s final match of the season is this Sunday against Valley newcomer Valparaiso at the Markin Tennis Courts at 10 a.m.
There are seven teams in this year’s conference tournament, two fewer than last season after Southern Illinois and Evansville discontinued their women’s tennis programs. Last season’s champion, Wichita State, is also no longer in the field after moving to the American Athletic Conference in the offseason and being replaced by Valparaiso from the Horizon League.
After starting the 2018 season 3-2, the Braves lost in 11 straight matches and had to cancel two more due to injuries in the months of March and April. The losing skid finally came to an end last weekend with their 4-3 win on the road against Northern Iowa. Bradley’s four points came from singles wins from freshman Sandra Maletin, sophomore Natalia Barbery, freshman Victoria Gonzalez and freshman Kinga Kovacs.
The team’s first conference victory was clinched with Kovacs’ 7-6, 6-2 win, the first in her collegiate career.
“I think we played good. The whole team,” said Maletin. “Kinga was the queen that day,” she added with a laugh.
The Braves’ 1-3 conference record currently puts them in fourth place out of the six traditional Missouri Valley teams. According to Bobby Parker, Bradley’s Associate AD for Communications, the seventh team, Stony Brook University, will be seeded based on their Universal Tennis Rating, the tennis version of RPI.
Drake is currently atop the standings with a perfect 4-0 record in conference and a 14-5 overall record. Illinois State sits in second at 3-1, Missouri State is in third at 2-1, Northern Iowa is tied with Bradley at 1-3 and Valparaiso is winless in its new conference at 0-3. Stony Brook does not play any Valley teams in the regular season, but has a 9-7 overall record for the year.
In last year’s tournament, Bradley was the sixth seed and was able to upset third-seed Illinois State, the host team for last year’s tournament. The Braves came away with a 4-3 win, including singles wins from Malini Wijesinghe and Alexa Brandt, who will both return to the tournament this year for Bradley.
Coach Matt Tyler is looking forward to seeing what his team can do in this year’s tournament.
“We’re excited for it. We’ve dealt with a lot of injury situations this year but people are getting healthy,” Tyler said. “Anything can happen in that championship. We are looking forward to a couple of good weeks of practice to be as prepared as we can for that event.”
The Braves are seeking their first conference championship in women’s tennis history. The school does have one tennis championship on the men’s side in 1968 before the team discontinued competition after the 2014 campaign.
The 2018 conference tournament will be hosted by Missouri State in Springfield, Missouri from April 27-29.