Colorado Women's Tennis Edges out BYU, Loses Road Match to Denver to Complete 1-1 Weekend

After an impressive victory over the Brigham Young Cougars on Friday afternoon, the University of Colorado women’s tennis team lost a road match to rivals University of Denver on Sunday, resulting in a .500 weekend for the team. 

The Buffs defeated the Cougars with the help of dominant singles performances at the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center on Friday afternoon. At the time, CU moved themselves to 5-1, while giving the Cougars their second loss of the season, putting them at 6-2. With a final score of 5-2, Colorado lost the doubles point early, but only gave up one more point for the rest of the day, keeping them undefeated at home this year. 

“Dropping the doubles points at home, I think the girls responded very well. They came back focused and took it to them in singles,” CU head coach Danielle Steinberg said following the match. “This is a good team, BYU is a good team. Well coached and disciplined and I was really happy with how we came out in singles on all courts honestly, even Toni with the loss, there were a lot of positives today. So, overall a good day, we had a good week of practice and this was a good match.”

BYU took an early lead over the Buffaloes after winning two out of the three doubles matches. Colorado’s team of Nayar and Derivan were the only doubles team to get a win with a 6-4 score to continue their win streak, now pushed to six. Colorado’s Forester and Campos played a tough match as well, but ended up falling in the tiebreak 6-7 to the BYU doubles team of Kong and Lin. This gave BYU the early lead after capturing the doubles points 2-1.

The Buffaloes didn’t give up after being down early as they turned it around in the rest of the matches. As the Buffaloes have done all year, they secured the victory with excellent singles play. Sara Nayar and Sophia Derivan’s wins in straight sets put Colorado up 2-1. Then BYU tied the score at 2 as CU’s #3 singles player Antonia Balzert fell in straight sets, after losing the tie-breaker in her first set. After being tied 2-2, the Buffaloes didn’t look back as Megan Forster and Maria Campos won in two sets each. In the sixth singles match, Fleur Eggink defeated BYU’s Helen Jiao in the third-set tiebreaker 10-5 to make the final score 5-2. 

Colorado had won over 80% of their singles matches this season prior to Sunday’s match and is undefeated playing on their home court. Sophomore Sophia Derivan improved her combined singles and doubles record up to 12-0 with two wins on Friday. The doubles team of Nayar and Derivan have also been key in Colorado’s success, as they won their sixth match in a row to start the year. When asked about the pair, Coach Steinberg said, “I think they’re a good doubles team. I’m excited to see them challenged and push it to the next level, to see if they can really compete at that high level, but so far they’re showing us that they can. They play power tennis. Especially at home, that’s hard to play against.”

Two days later, the Buffaloes then fell down south to the University of Denver Pioneers on Sunday morning, losing a heartbreaker 4-3, sending them home standing at 5-2 on the season. Colorado hasn’t defeated DU since 2015, who enters the new week at 4-3 overall. 

For the second straight match, CU was unable to perform well early on in the doubles matches, as Denver swept the matches 3-0. Nayar and Derivan suffered their first doubles defeat at the hands of Britt Pursell and Camille V-Anderson, 6-4. 

After losing the first two singles matches, putting the score at 3-0 Denver, the Buffs put their foot on the gas pedal to win the next three matches, culminating with Megan Forster’s victory in the #4 singles match over V-Anderson. However, the visitors could not sustain that momentum into the last match of the day, as Nayar fell to Taylor Melville in a nail biting three sets. 

“Heck of a battle today, didn’t have the best day in doubles but I’m very proud of the way we bounced back in singles,” said Steinberg post match. “4-6 spots played tough tennis today, probably their best match since the season started. At 1, Sara played a great match and came up just short at the end, but it was a high level of tennis throughout and I am proud of her battle out there.”

Colorado’s next match will be another road trip, a visit to Colorado Springs to take on the Air Force Falcons this Friday at 5:00 PM MST. The Buffaloes will look to get back on track and grab their sixth win of the season, along with their first road victory of the season. The team has won away from Boulder, against the University of North Dakota in Ames, Iowa, but that is considered a neutral site match.