Redbirds Looks To Secure Outright Regular Season Title Against Belmont

NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois State women's tennis team has already secured at least a share of the Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship but will look to finish the year undefeated in league play and have sole ownership of the regular season title on Saturday, when the Redbirds (14-6, 7-0 MVC) host Belmont (8-11, 5-1 MVC) at the Gregory Street Courts in Normal.

It will be Senior Day for the Redbirds, who will honor Alexandra Abyasova, Tara Damnjanovic and Elena Jankulovska in a pre-match ceremony at 2:15 p.m. First serve against the Bruins is set for 2:30 p.m.

"With the conference championship on the line, we know this will be extremely competitive match," ISU head coach Maja Kovacek said. "We have a special group of seniors we will be honoring, and the team will do everything they can to send them off with a win."

The Redbirds are coming off a pair of wins last weekend at UIC and Valparaiso. ISU picked up a hard-fought 4-3 victory in Chicago last Friday against UIC, before taking the early advantage and defeating Valpo by a score of 5-2 outdoors at the Valpo Tennis Complex to secure at least a share of the MVC regular-season title.

The No. 1 doubles duo Damnjanovic and Tijana Zlatanovic continued their strong play as of late and picked up a pair of wins for the Redbirds last week in their two wins. The tandem battled to a tiebreaker win on Friday against UIC's No. 1 doubles team of Agnes Gustafsson and Natali Nikolopoulou by a score of 7-6 that clinched doubles point for the Redbirds in a 4-3 team win. Then on Saturday, the pair rolled to a 6-3 win over Valpo's Olivia Czerwonka and Moira Silva to improve to 6-1 in MVC play. They have now won five matches in a row and eight out of their last 10 overall.

Belmont heads into the final weekend of the regular season tied for second place with Drake in the MVC standings with matching 5-1 marks, with matches scheduled against the Redbirds on Saturday and at Bradley on Sunday. The Bruins secured a pivotal 4-3 MVC road victory at Murray State on Wednesday with a clinching three-set win at No. 4 singles. Belmont bounced back after dropping the doubles point by taking four of the six singles matches.

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