The Illinois State Redbirds women’s tennis team will travel to California for two matches during the university’s Spring Break. The team is scheduled to face Pacific on Saturday and Dominican on Sunday, with both matches set to begin at 2 p.m. CT.
Illinois State, currently holding a 7-3 record, comes into the trip after splitting two road matches last week. The Redbirds lost to Lipscomb 6-1 but rebounded with a 4-0 win over Southeast Missouri. Nicole Iosio remains undefeated in dual matches this spring, improving her record to 7-0 after securing wins against both Lipscomb and Southeast Missouri. She also competed at the No. 2 doubles spot for Illinois State.
The No. 3 doubles team of Vittoria Benedetti and Emma Lindh has also been successful, maintaining a perfect 7-0 record as a pair since the start of the year. Their latest victory was a 6-2 win over Southeast Missouri State’s Yontha Tadoum and Sofia Zemtsova, contributing to the Redbirds’ doubles point in their shutout win.
Pacific enters Saturday’s match with a 3-8 record but has won its last three contests. The Tigers recently secured a close victory over CSUN, thanks to three-set wins by Cindy Ung and Nahreen Cheam in singles play. Ung teamed up with Leyanne Hirota for an early doubles win, while Milena Maiorova and Indiya McLeod clinched the doubles point on court one.
Cheam now holds a season record of 3-4 after consecutive singles victories, while McLeod leads Pacific in singles wins this season. For Ung, her recent singles result marked her first win since returning to the program.
Dominican holds a 5-3 record but is coming off losses to Pacific (7-0) and Menlo College (5-2). In their most recent match against Menlo, Lorenza Foster-Simbulan and Maria Gavrilov earned a doubles victory at No. 2 for Dominican. Kaylee Lopez picked up her second win of the day in singles action, while Deepalakshmi Vanaraja added another point with her own singles victory.
Illinois State Redbirds competes in NCAA Division I events across various regions and is linked to Illinois State University according to its official website. The athletics program benefits from resources such as the OSF HealthCare Athletics Training Center for student-athlete preparation and support from initiatives like the Redbird Athletics Excellence Fund that help competitiveness and recruitment efforts (source). Fans can find news, schedules, rosters, tickets, multimedia content, merchandise information, and more through GoRedbirds.com or the Illinois State Redbirds App (source).
