On Feb. 26, the No. 13 Vanderbilt Women’s Tennis team swept the MTSU Blue Raiders 7-0 in its final nonconference dual match before SEC play begins this weekend. With clear skies, the match was played outdoors at the Currey Tennis Pavilion in Nashville. The Commodores won the doubles point before convincingly winning the singles points on all six courts.
In doubles competition, the duo of Celia-Belle Mohr and Marcella Cruz defeated the Blue Raiders’ Love-Star Alexis and Muskan Gupta 6-3 on Court 1. Meanwhile, the new pairing of Holly Staff and Amy Stevens comfortably beat MTSU’s Karen Yibirin and Camila Barragan 6-1 on Court 3, clinching the doubles point with the Court 2 matchup still in progress.
“We have a deep team this year with multiple options for both doubles pairings and singles lineup so just seeing alternative options and was happy with the way they played,” head coach Aleke Tsoubanos said in an email to The Hustler. “Probably a bit of nerves there early but once they settled in I thought they did great together.”
In singles play, Vanderbilt won on all six courts in straight sets. Three of them ― No. 45 Mohr, No. 53 Bridget Stammel and Dasha Kourkina ― only dropped one game over their two sets. Straight-set wins by No. 96 Staff, Stevens and Cruz rounded out the 7-0 sweep.
Having secured a 6-3 nonconference record and a top-20 ITA team ranking, Vanderbilt now turns to the conference portion of its schedule. The Commodores will face all 13 of their SEC foes in dual matches between now and mid-April, starting with a road trip this weekend to visit both Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
“For starters, we will have to get used to being on the road a bit, we are away three of the first four weekends of conference play and won’t find ourselves in the friendly confines of our home courts,” Tsoubanos said. “We just need to focus on the next match in front of us and being consistent in all 9 positions, controlling what we can and being resilient in the moments when things don’t go our way.”
The Commodores open SEC play on Friday, March 3 at 3 p.m. CST against Ole Miss in Oxford.
