Tennis Closes Fall Season at Spartan Invite

Tennis at MSU Spartan Invitational
Date	Friday-Sunday, Nov. 1-3, 2024
Venue	MSU Indoor Tennis Center \| East Lansing, Mich.
Host	Michigan State
Notes/Stats	EMU Notes (pdf)
Results / Watch	Tournament Site \| Watch Friday
Social Media	X: @EMUEaglesTennis \| Instagram: @EMU_Tennis

EAST LANSING, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) -- The Eastern Michigan University tennis team is set to compete in its final fall even this weekend when the Eagles head north to participate in the 2024 Spartan Invitational hosted by Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. The three-day event will be held Nov. 1-3 inside the MSU Indoor Tennis Center with players from seven schools entered.

EVENT INFO: THE BASICS
The three-day tournament will see action start each day at 9 a.m. with singles matches set for 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 12 p.m., and one round of doubles to be played at 2 p.m. There are five flights of singles action that will play out to place and four, five-team pods of doubles action that will see at least three round-robin matches played in each pod over the weekend. The competitors in the field hail from seven schools as the Eagles and host Spartans could each face opponents from Butler, DePaul, Iowa, Northwestern, and Ohio State.

EVENT INFO: THE EAGLES
Seven Eagles will compete in the Spartan Invitational this weekend with all seven entered in the singles tournaments and six set to play doubles. In singles play, Daniella Shved will compete in Flight A; Prerna Vichare in Flight B; Kseniia Saenko in Flight C; both Marta Komar and Viki Hazmukova in Flight D; and both Regina Mendez and Lara Diaz Zayas in Flight E. In doubles play, Saenko and Vichare will compete in Pod 2; Hazmukova and Komar are together in Pod 3; and the team of Diaz Zayas and Shved will play in Pod 4.

FIRST SERVES
» With two wins in doubles play at the MAC Fall Individuals, Oct. 24-27, Sabina Brichackova recorded the 99th and 100th career combined wins of her career. She now has 49 career doubles wins and needs just seven more to tie for the No. 19 position in program history.
» Freshman Iva Daneva posted an impressive win at the MAC Fall Individuals as she came back from 0-6, 2-5, to win, 0-6, 7-6(14), 6-1, in the first round.
» The Eagles' 2024-25 roster features 10 players, including six returnees and four newcomers. In total, nine different nations are represented on the roster, including the U.S., Argentina, Czechia, India, Israel, Mexico, North Macedonia, Poland, and Russia.
» Ryan Kucera returns for his second season as the team's head coach and will look to guide the team to the MAC Tournament for the second year in a row, which would mark the first time it has happened since the 2014 and 2015 tournaments.
» Players are not the only addition to the roster this year as the coaching staff has added both Masha Polishchuk and Andrew Dobbs. Polishchuk, a MAC champion during her playing career at Ball State, will serve as a graduate assistant coach while Dobbs will serve as an undergraduate assistant.

RECAP: MAC INDIVIDUALS • SINGLES
The singles tournament featured two players each from the eight MAC schools sponsoring women's tennis with Iva Daneva and Sabina Brichackova representing the Eagles. Daneva, a freshman, drew Sara Zalukar of Miami in the opening round and looked to be making an early exit as she trailed, 6-0, 5-2, in her match before making an incredible comeback. Daneva played her way into a second-set tiebreaker at 6-6 before winning the tie break in a marathon, 16-14, to even the score at one set each. In the third, Daneva continued to improve and won, 6-1, to capture the victory. She would fall in the quarterfinals in a 6-0, 6-4 decision to Northern Illinois' Nataly Ninova. Brichackova also competed in the singles tournament, but fell in her opening match, 6-2, 6-3, to Elena Malykh of Ball State.

RECAP: MAC INDIVIDUALS • DOUBLES
Entering the tournament, Sabina Brichackova and Prerna Vichare had played 50 times together and sported a 31-19 career record together. Those matches paid off as the duo tallied a 7-5, 6-4 win in the quarterfinals over Ball State's Sara Shahbaz and Isabelle Tanjuatco to reach the semifinals. With a spot in the final on the line, the EMU duo dug deep and found a way to win, taking the match, 6-7(6), 6-2, 1-0(5), over Maria Glowacka and Jagmeet Kaur of Buffalo. In the finals, the homestanding RedHawk duo of Valentinsson and Zalukar took the match with the Eagles finishing as the runners-up.

HITTING THE CENTURY MARK
Sabina Brichackova captured two wins at the MAC Fall Individuals in Hamilton, Ohio, Oct. 24-27, to record the 99th and 100th combined wins of her career. The senior is the first to reach 100 wins in a career since the 2017-18 season when both Ani Gogvadze (117) and Andrea Matrinovska (111) capped their careers in Ypsilanti.

UP THE LADDER
Sabina Brichackova and doubles partner Prerna Vichare reached the finals at the MAC Fall Individuals, Oct. 24-27, and finished as the runners-up in the inaugural event. With the two wins they collected, each moved closer to the all-time top 20 in doubles wins as they have 49 and 48, respectively. Currently, Miriam Westerink (2008-12) and Avi Gogvadze (2014-18) are tied for 19th on the list with 56 wins, meaning Brichackova and Vichare are seven and eight wins, respectively, from joining the all-time top 20.

ON THE HORIZON
Eastern returns to action in 2025. A full schedule for the season will be released in mid-November.

FOLLOW US
For all things EMU Tennis, be sure to check out the team's social media accounts, including EMUEaglesTennis on X (formerly Twitter) and EMU_Tennis on Instagram.

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Players Mentioned

Sabina Brichackova

Iva Daneva

Lara Diaz Zayas

Viki Hazmukova

Marta Komar

Regina Mendez Carreño

Kseniia Saenko

Daniella Shved

Prerna Vichare

Eastern Michigan Athletics