Cougar Tennis Hosts Gonzaga Sunday
THIS WEEK: The Washington State Tennis team continues its two-match homestand to open the spring season by hosting Gonzaga, Sunday, January 22 at Noon at the Simmelink Tennis Courts at Hollingbery Fieldhouse. Free coffee and donuts will be provided for fans.
LAST WEEK The Cougars began their dual match season by defeating Montana, 7-0, at Hollingbery Fieldhouse. WSU dropped just one set in the nine matches as it improved to 40-4 in the all-time series against the Grizzlies.
SCOUTING GONZAGA: Gonzaga enters Sunday's match with a 2-0 mark, defeating Montana and Seattle last weekend in Spokane. The Bulldogs are led by senior Care Broerman, who enters the match with a No. 115 national singles ranking. WSU leads the all-time series, 23-1, including a 5-2 victory last year in Spokane.
NEXT UP: The Cougars travel to Charlottesville, Va. to compete at the 2023 ITA Kickoff Weekend. WSU will face host and No. 9-ranked Virginia in its first match Friday, Jan. 27 at Noon PT. Saturday's second match will be against either South Carolina or Northwestern. The winner of the four-team event will advance to the 2023 ITA National Teams Indoors, Feb. 10-13 in Seattle.
MURPHY NAMED PAC-12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Sophomore Maxine Murphy was named the Pac-12 Conference Women's Tennis Player of the Week, the conference office announced Jan. 17. The sophomore from Laguna Nigel, Calif. captured the conference's first player of the week honor for the 2023 season after posting a pair of victories in the Cougars' 7-0 victory over Montana last Friday. Murphy teamed with freshman Eva Alvarez Sande for a 7-5 win over Hailey Murphy and Grace Haugen at No. 1 doubles and followed that with a convincing 6-0, 6-1 win over Hailey Murphy at No. 1 singles. The honor marks the first of Murphy's career.
TSE PICKS UP FIRST ITF WIN: Cougar sophomore Elyse Tse captured her first professional ITF main draw victory late in December when she posted a 6-3, 6-1 win over Taleia Tuatao in the first round of the 25k Tauranga event.
ROSTER BREAKDOWN: For the 2022-23 season the Cougars will have three new players to accompany the six returners. The returning roster consists of fifth-year senior Yang Lee, junior Fifa Kumhom and sophomores Hania Abouelsaad, Stefaniia Mikhailova, Maxine Murphy and Elyse Tse. Joining the Cougar tennis program this year are freshmen Eva Alvarez Sande, Yura Nakagawa and Tiffany Phout.
COACH RAQUEL ATAWO: Raquel Atawo begins her second season as head coach of the Cougars after being named to the position July 2, 2021. In Atawo's first year leading Washington State Tennis, the Cougars showed great improvement throughout the season, finishing with a, 8-15 record, but posted back-to-back wins late in the season over nationally-ranked Washington. Atawo arrived in Pullman having spent the 2021 season as the assistant coach at Auburn and prior to that, spent 15 years on the WTA Tour, where she reached at No. 10 world ranking in doubles.
FOLLOW LIVE: For all Cougar home tennis matches at Hollingbery Fieldhouse, live video streams of each match can be found HERE while live scoring is available HERE.
FOLLOW THE COUGARS: Keep up with Washington State tennis by following @WSUCougarTennis on Twitter, @wsucougartennis on Instagram, and Washington State Cougar Tennis on Facebook.