CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – No. 2 seeded Southeast Missouri women's tennis (13-6, 5-2 OVC) is poised to compete in the 2022 Ohio Valley Conference Tennis Championship Semifinals Saturday at the Wesselman Tennis Center in Evansville, Indiana. The Redhawks will take on No. 3 Belmont (13-7, 5-2 OVC) Saturday morning at 10 a.m., CT.
#3 Belmont beat No. 6 UT Martin (4-16, 3-4 OVC), 4-1, Friday afternoon in the First Round.
The Redhawks will make their 14th OVC Tournament appearance in program history and third-straight OVC Championship Tournament appearance. Head coach
Mary Beth Gunn will lead SEMO to its fourth tournament appearance in seven seasons this weekend.
SEMO finished tied for second in the league in 2022 with Belmont and because the Redhawks have the tiebreaker over the Bruins, they earned the second seed and a First Round bye at this week's 2022 OVC Tennis Championship.
The Redhawks fashioned a 5-2 conference mark this season with five-straight league wins over Eastern Illinois, SIUE, UT Martin, Tennessee State and Belmont to open the slate.
SEMO most recently fell to Austin Peay, the No. 1 Seed and 2022 OVC Regular-Season Champions, 5-2 on April 16 before dropping its regular season finale to Murray State, 4-3, on April 19.
The Redhawks have five singles players with double-digit wins in 2022.
Vivian Lai paces SEMO with a 13-4 mark including a 6-1 record in OVC matches at No. 5.
Lai, a junior from Taipei, Taiwan, has fashioned an impressive 13-1 record in her career in regular-season league matches. Overall, Lai's career singles record stands at 34-9 entering the weekend.
Daniela Hlacikova and
Ksenia Shikanova are both second on the Redhawks with 12 wins in 2022.
Hlacikova, a sophomore from Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, has won her last five singles matches this campaign (12-6 in 2022, 26-9 in career) and matched her OVC record of 6-1 earned in 2021 (12-2 in career OVC regular season matches). Individually, she has been named OVC Tennis Player of the Week twice in 2022.
Shikanova, a junior from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, has compiled a 12-7 overall mark this season (24-12 in career) heading into this week's 2022 OVC Championship Tournament. She is 3-4 in conference matches this season, playing primarily at the third slot.
Teona Velkoska and
Myroslava Zelenchuk have both posted identical 11-6 marks including 5-2 records during league matches this season.
Velkoska, a senior from Prilep, Macedonia, has matched her career best wins total of 11 set in 2019 during her freshman campaign (30-21 in career). She is 5-2 this season in OVC matches at the sixth slot.
Zelenchuk, a freshman from Lviv, Ukraine, enters the weekend on a four-match win streak for an 11-6 record in 2022 and 5-2 mark at No. 4 in league matches.
Romana Tarajova, SEMO's top singles player from Dolný Kubín, Slovakia, is two wins away from 10 this season (8-9 in 2022, 35-25 in career) and posted a 4-3 mark against conference competition this season.
On the doubles side, Hlacikova and Velkoska pace the Redhawks with a 12-3 record in 2022 including a 6-1 mark against OVC foes at the second position. The duo has been named OVC Doubles Team of the Week twice this season.
SEMO's top doubles team of Shikanova and Tarajova are 7-3 this season including 2-2 during league play.
Lai and Zelenchuk have combined for a 6-3 record in 2022 and went 3-2 in the OVC at No. 3.
SEMO has opened matches with the doubles point 11 times this season including five times during conference play.
Zelenchuk (once), Shikanova (twice) and Tarajova (twice) have also all earned OVC weekly honors in 2022. Shikanova and Tarajova were named the OVC Doubles Team of the Week on March 22.
The Redhawks are two wins away from matching their win total of 15 from 2021 which was their highest win total in 28 years as the 1993 SEMO team finished the season with a mark of 17-6 (6-1 OVC).
SEMO, the 2021 OVC Regular-Season Champions, finished as the 2021 OVC Championship Tournament runners-up, dropping a tight 4-3 match to #2 Austin Peay in the finals. SEMO advanced to the Championship Finals with a 4-1 win over #4 Jacksonville State in the semifinals.
The 2022 Redhawks team returned all but two players (eight of 10) from that 2021 squad with the graduation of seniors
Maja Lundell and
Kseniya Zonova. Zonova is now a member of the coaching staff as a graduate assistant.
In 2022, the Redhawks won the regular-season matchup with Belmont, 6-1, on April 9 in Nashville, Tennessee. SEMO also beat UT Martin, 6-1, during the 2022 regular season on April 2 in Martin, Tennessee.
Gina Feistel paced Belmont with a 7-0 singles mark during league play at No. 1 and has a 12-6 overall record in 2022.
Anastasiya Zholdakova is second on the Bruins with a 6-1 league mark (8-5 overall record) this season, playing primarily at the third position.
Somer Henry and Peyton Lee have combined for a 5-2 OVC mark at the middle slot for Belmont.
For UTM, Lia Espinal is 5-2 in OVC matches (8-7 overall in 2022), playing mostly at the fourth flight. Aziza Aubin (10-7 overall in 2022) and Mizuki Sakurai both added 4-3 singles marks during the league slate at fifth and sixth singles, respectively.
The doubles teams of Espinal/Jillian Niedzialowski (No. 3) and Aubin/Amelia Campbell (No. 2) were both 3-3 in OVC play.
The OVC Women's Championship will be contested for the 46th time (it was first held in 1977) in 2022. It will be the second consecutive season that the Tournament has been held in Evansville, Indiana.
With a win Saturday, SEMO will face the winner of #1 Austin Peay and #4 SIUE/#5 Murray State Sunday in the 2022 OVC Championship Final. First serve is set for 10 a.m. Sunday.
