The University of Rhode Island women’s tennis team extended their winning streak to six with a pair of wins on the weekend over Stony Brook University and Hofstra University.
Rhody improved to 7-2 on the season at the International Tennis Hall of Fame after Saturday’s 5-2 win over Stony Brook and Sunday’s 6-1 win over Hofstra.
The Rams’ top two doubles units gave their team a 1-0 lead with wins. The top spot of fourth-year Valentina Cvackova and second-year Sophie Herrman won their matchup 6-1.
Fifth-year Nadia Rajan and second-year Nikki Fernando won their matchup 6-2, improving to 12-7 throughout the 2023-24 season.
”Being able to play so many matches together, we’ve gained so much confidence, not only with each other, but also in ourselves,” Fernando said. “That was highlighted this past weekend. We’re doing so many things that we didn’t do at the beginning of the season and it’s just cool to see each other grow as players.”
Rajan and Fernando both won their singles matches in the second and fourth spots. Fernando extended her singles win streak to six with a 6-3, 6-3 win.
In the third spot, Cvackova won her matchup 6-1, 6-1 and third-year Klara Nelander rounded out the Rams’ singles wins with a 6-0, 6-1 victory.
Despite losing her matchup to Stony Brook’s first-year Mia Palladine in three sets (6-0, 2-6, 6-3), Herrman is included in the Rams’ top five singles players that have at least five wins on the season.
The following afternoon, Herrman returned to the win column in her singles matchup against Hofstra’s Lea Forst-Dinell. This matchup once again went three sets, racking up 34 games in total: 6-4, 1-6, 10-7.
The Rams’ single match victories went in order from there on out, with wins coming from Rajan, Cvackova, Fernando and Nelander, whose single wins streak sits at five matches.
First-year Steph Hylton was defeated 6-4, 6-0 by second-year Sabrina Mohamed of Hofstra in the sixth spot.
Earning the doubles point to put the Rams up 1-0, wins once again came once again from the top doubles groups of Cvackova and Herrman along with Fernando and Rajan.
Fernando was next in line to put the Rams up 2-0, pushing her win streak in singles play to seven matches.
”Nikki has so, so many tools, weapons and variety to her game,” URI Head Coach Jonas Brobeck said. “I think she’s understood a little bit better what she needs to do to be successful and what she needs to do in order to break down our opponents.”
Fernando credited the team’s success to how they uplift each other during practices and matches.
”I don’t think I could have done it without the support of my team,” Fernando said. “I play next to Nadia [Rajan] and Steph [Hylton] and they match my energy. I think even in practice, having that high and positive energy to be around has been the cause of our success lately.”
The consistency in practices have also contributed to the success of the team since coming back from winter break, according to Brobeck
”Match days are an accumulation of all the hard work that we’ve done in practice that week,” Brobeck said. “Tennis is one of those sports where you can’t just practice during the weeks when you’re going to compete, it’s a year-round sport.”
The Rams will look to continue their win streak on Tuesday morning at 10:45 a.m. against Georgetown University in Washington, DC.