App State women’s tennis lost their second and third consecutive matchups this weekend, losing to Austin Peay University 3-4 Saturday in Boone and Wake Forest University 2-4 Sunday in Winston-Salem. Senior No. 9 Savannah Dada-Mascoll and freshman Sreenidhi Balaji were the lone Mountaineers to go undefeated as Dada-Mascoll went 4-0 across both singles and doubles matches while Balaji went 3-0 over two doubles affairs and one singles.
It was easy work all weekend for the reigning All-American from England Dada-Mascoll won both her singles matches, refusing to give up more than 3 game wins. She went 6-2, 6-3 against Austin Peay and 6-1, 6-3 against Wake Forest. Dada-Mascoll and her doubles partner, junior Taya Powell, did not drop a match all weekend , moving their season record to an impressive 4-1.
Balaji did not participate in the singles section of the Austin Peay matchup but did make her presence felt in the doubles. Her and freshman Allegra Hodson won easily against the Governors 6-3 while the two escaped the Wake Forest matchup 6-4. The two moved to 2-2 on the year as a pair while Balaji moves to 4-3 in doubles as she holds a 2-1 record with junior Naledi Manyube.
Balaji’s singles matchup against Aubrey Nisbet of the Demon Deacons had everything a tennis fan would want as it opened with a dominant win for the App State freshman before Nisbet won a dominant second set. A back and forth third set saw the opponents locked at 2 games a piece before Nisbet was unable to continue. Balaji won the head-to-head 6-1, 2-6, 3-2.
Powell and Hodson did not see their doubles form continue over to the singles as each player finished 0-2 in that section. Only Powell sent one of her matchups to a third set where she lost in a pretty dominant fashion, 6-4, 1-6, 2-6.
Manyube finished 1-3 on the weekend, winning her lone match against Yi-Ching Huang 6-2, 6-3 while losing both of her doubles matchups with sophomore Ruby Broadbent 6-3. Broadbent went 0-2 in the singles section, only netting more than 3 game wins once in an overtime thriller against Pauline Bruns of Austin Peay.
Sophomore Alexi Cleveland only appeared in one singles match against Elana Thiel of the Governors. Her lone matchup became the talk of the weekend as it came down to her to potentially take the overall matchup versus Austin Peay.
Cleveland dropped the first set 2-6 before handing Thiel a taste of her own medicine with a 6-2 victory. The final set was back and forth before Cleveland gave up a fifth game win and Thiel didn’t look back from there, dominating the sixth and final game to win the Governors head-to-head 4-3.
App State women’s tennis takes a trip to Texas as they face off against Tarleton State University Friday at noon before they’ll meet The University of Texas at Arlington Saturday at 10 a.m.
