The day began with junior Phonexay Chitdara and freshman Sophie Gerits advancing to the Flight 1 finals of doubles play with a win over Ana Perez-Lopez and Karina Traxler of SMU. In a tight match that went down to the wire, Houston’s duo prevailed 7-6 to move on to face Janina Braun and Sara Lizariturry of Mississippi State in the finals at 9 a.m., Sunday.
Constandena Nicolaou and Ndindi Ndunda picked up their first doubles victory of the fall with a win in the Flight 2 consolation round over Autumn Crossnoe and Allison Stewart (Abilene Christian). With their 6-3 victory, Nicolaou and Ndunda advance to face Momoka Horiguchi and Nanaka Takeuchi of UT Arlington in the consolation finals.
The Cougars completed their sweep of Saturday’s doubles matches with a victory for Belovukovic and Tairyan in the Flight 3 consolation round. Belovukovic and Tairyan rolled to a 6-2 win over Carolina Bulatovic and Myu Kageyami, 6-2, and will face Katherine Jakeway and Emma Pieroni (SMU) on Sunday.
Belovukovic punched her ticket to the flight finals in singles play with a victory in the semifinals of Flight 5. Belovukovic rolled to a 6-3 victory in the first set, before dropping just one game in the second, clinching with a 6-1 score.
Belovukovic will face Fuka Nonoyama (Central Arkansas) in Sunday’s final.
Tairyan also punched her ticket to the flight finals with a straight-set victory over Slvia Viljoen (Abilene Christian) in Flight 8. Tairyan swept Viljoen 6-0 in the first set, before outlasting her 6-4 in the second set to seal the match.
Tairyan moves on to face Kageyama in the finals Sunday.
Houston’s third win of the day came from Sophie Gerits in the consolation round of Flight 3 singles. Matched up against Liza Buss (SMU), Gerits won each set 6-4, 6-4 to clinch the match.
Gerits will face Damira Muminovic (Georgia State) in the Consolation finals on Sunday.
Ndunda also won her singles match on Saturday to advance to the consolation finals of Flight 4. Ndunda dropped the first set 6-2 to Carolina Bulatovic (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi), however the sophomore rebounded to win the second set 6-2 and kept the momentum going with a 6-4 win to clinch the match.
Ndunda will face Tiffany Hollebeck (SMU) in the consolation final on Sunday.
Also in singles play on Sunday, Chitdara and Nicolaou each dropped their singles matches in the consolation round of Flight 2. Chitdara fell to Sarai Monarrez Yesaki (SMU) 6-1, 6-2, while Nicolaou lost to Tatiana Nikolaeva (Austin Peay) 6-1, 6-2. Nicolaou and Chitdara were scheduled to play each other on Sunday, however in order to avoid teammates playing each other Nicolaou will now face Fabienne Schmidt (Austin Peay), while Chitdara will meet Camille Townsend (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi).