ORLANDO, Fla. – Washington State sophomore Michaela Bayerlova and the doubles pair of senior Tiffany Mylonas and freshman Hikaru Sato begin play this week at the 2019 NCAA Women's Tennis Individual Championship at the USTA National Campus.
 
Bayerlova, ranked No. 42 nationally, will face No. 55 Lauren Proctor of Winthrop University Monday at 12:30 p.m. PT in her first-round match. It marks the first meeting between the two players.
 
A native of Krumbach, Germany, Bayerlova was named to the 2019 All-Pac-12 First Team for the second-consecutive season and participating in the NCAA Singles Championship for the second-straight year. She enters the tournament with a 22-7 singles record, which included seven victories over nationally-ranked players. Last month she garnered her third career Pac-12 Player of the Week honors after defeating UCLA and UCS in back-to-back matches, the former resulting in WSU's largest upset in program history after defeating No. 10 UCLA, 4-2.
 
Bayerlova becomes just the fourth Cougar players to participate in multiple singles championships, joining Liudmila Vasilieva (2010, 2012), Ekaterina Burduli (2006, 2008) and Erica Perkins (1999, 2001-02). Bayerlova is the only WSU player to win a singles match at the championship, captured a straight-set win last season over Natalie Novotna in the first round.
 
In doubles play, Mylonas and Sato open their championship run Tuesday, May 21 when they face Winthrop's Proctor and Megan Kauffman, the nation's 44th-ranked duo.
 
The pair of Mylonas, from Brussels, Belgium, and Sato, from Tokyo, Japan, have combined for a team-best 26-6 doubles record, including a 17-6 dual match record at No. 1. They began the season with a 12-match winning streak, capturing a pair of fall titles, and enter the NCAA tournament playing their best tennis of the season. Over the past nine matches, the pair has gone 6-0 with three matches unfinished. All nine opponents have been ranked in the top 50 and most recently they defeated No. 13 Daevenia Achong and Daniella Roldan of Miami. Their highest-ranked win of the season came Apr. 12 when they defeated UCLA's Gabby Andrews and Ayan Broomfield, ranked No. 5. The latest run has seen their national ranking go from 75 in early April to a career-best 22 in the most recent ranking.
 
The last time WSU had a doubles team participate in the NCAA Championship came in 2002 when Erica Perkins and Stacy McKenna were selected. The year prior, McKenna and Ana Moura were selected, the only other time WSU has been represented at the NCAA Doubles Championship.