Turkovic/Spaka Fall in First Round of NCAA Doubles Championships

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A magical 2022 Sun Devil Women's Tennis season has officially drawn to a close.

Senior Domenika Turkovic and freshman Patricija Spaka, ranked as the No. 28 duo in the country, were eliminated in the opening round of the NCAA Doubles Championships on Tuesday evening at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Sun Devils were bested by Virginia's Emma Navarro/Hibah Shaikh, listed by the ITA as the No. 3 pair in the country, 6-4, 7-5.

Trailing 5-0 in the opening set, the Sun Devils had rattled off four consecutive games to clip the Viriginia lead to one. After narrowly dropping the first set, the Sun Devils just couldn't catch Navarro/Shaikh in the second, after the score was evened twice at 3-3 and 5-5.

Turkovic and Spaka were one of 32 doubles teams selected to compete in Champaign. The rare senior-freshman pairing, the two had played alongside each other on Court 1 in every match this spring. They began to jettison up national rankings after beginning the season 6-0 and again after defeating UCLA's Ava Catanzarite/Abigail Forbes, then the No. 23 ranked duo, in March.

The ITA has announced it will release their end-of-season doubles rankings on June 2, with the Sun Devil pair will vie to become the 21st doubles tandem in to end in the top-25 final rankings in the Sheila McInerney era.