The Northern Illinois women’s tennis team extended its winning streak to six matches and improved its record to 9-1 on the spring season with a 7-0 shutout of Chicago State Friday afternoon at the Boylan Tennis Courts in Rockford.
NIU opened the match by sweeping the three doubles matches, including an 8-5 win at No. 3 doubles by Mary Malkin (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Cristina Alvarez (Zaragoza, Spain).
The Huskies top two doubles pairs won by identical 8-3 scores. NIU’s Nelle Youel (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake Central HS) and Arantza De La Torre (San Luis Potosi, Mexico) extended their unbeaten streak at No. 1 doubles to 10 matches with the win.
Youel added a 6-1, 6-1 at No. 1 singles over CSU’s Karen Emeralda to extend her unbeaten streak in singles to 10 matches as she has not dropped a set this spring. Malkin had the most dominating victory of the day as she did not surrender a game with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Viviene Noel at No. 4 to improve her spring singles record to 9-1.
The Huskies’ toughest test in singles came at No. 5, where Alvarez claimed a 6-2, 6-3 win over Ruta Grinvalde of Chicago State.
NIU head coach Ryun Ferrell was pleased with his team’s performance as the Huskies continue to improve their play this spring.
“We showed good discipline today,” Ferrell said. “Chicago State came out hitting the ball very big. We needed to be disciplined and stick to our game plan and that is what we did. This was a nice win. Chicago State is much improved and is very well-coached. It will be nice for the team to have the rest of the weekend off before we get back to work and head to Des Moines [next weekend].”
The match was NIU’s lone home contest in a stretch of nine matches. Next weekend, the Huskies travel to Des Moines, Iowa where they will face Nebraska-Omaha, Drake and Central Arkansas on Saturday and Sunday, March 2-3.
For more information on NIU women’s tennis and Huskie athletics, visit www.niuhuskies.com.