Match 15
vs Missouri State University (1-10)
Date: Friday, February 28th, 2025
Time: 2:00 p.m., CT
Location: Paducah, KY
Series: SEMO leads 9-3
Live Stats: semoredhawks.com

Match 16
vs University of North Alabama (4-2)
Date: Sunday, March 2nd, 2025
Time: 10:00 a.m., CT
Location: Paducah, KY
Series: SEMO leads 1-0
Live Stats: semoredhawks.com

Redhawks are Back in Paducah to Face Missouri State and North Alabama
Southeast Missouri tennis is back in Paducah, Kentucky this weekend to face in-state rival Missouri State on Friday at 2 p.m., CT and North Alabama on Sunday at 10 a.m., CT. Friday's match will be played at the Larry Heflin Tennis Center and Sunday's match will be played at the Rowton Paul Indoor Tennis Center.

About Missouri State
The Bears come into this weekend with a 1-10 record, having lost in their last match to Middle Tennessee, who are currently ranked 71st in the nation. MoState's singular win this season came against Central Arkansas, where the Bears won the contest 6-1. MoState is led by junior Billur Gonlusen who has a singles record of 4-5 with wins coming at No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. Another notable performer is Sandra Lukacova, who earned All-MVC First Team honors in 2024. In the preseason poll for the Missouri Valley Conference, MoState was picked to finish sixth. Last year, the Bears finished with a 13-10 record, going 4-4 in conference play and 8-1 in home matches.

About North Alabama
The Lions come to Paducah this weekend with a 4-2 record, on a two game win streak. In the Atlantic Sun Conference preseason poll, North Alabama was picked sixth, coming off of a record of 15-8 last year, going 4-6 in conference play. The Lions are led by Stanislava Bobrovnikova, who has a 5-1 record at No. 1. In doubles, the pairing of Emma Ansorge and Mathilde Delaney have performed well, earning a record of 5-0 coming from both No. 2 and No. 3. Ansorge was selected to the ASUN All-Freshman Team last year, finishing with a record of 14-6 in singles and 5-7 in doubles.

Series History
The Redhawks have faced off against the Bears twelve times, with the last meeting coming in 2024 where the Redhawks lost 4-3 away from home. Before that game SEMO had won the last six matches against MoState.

SEMO has only faced North Alabama once before, with the Redhawks emerging victorious in a 5-2 win at home in 2023.

The Bluegrass State
SEMO has enjoyed some success as of late playing in Paducah, Kentucky. Counting this year and the past two seasons the Redhawks have a 6-3 record when playing matches in Paducah. In 2023 Southeast Missouri even won the OVC Championship in Paducah. SEMO looks to continue that trend, hopefully adding two more to the win column after this weekend. 

Redhawk Leaders
Juliette Demunck leads the Redhawks in singles this season. Demunck has a team best eight singles victories with four wins coming at No. 3 and four  wins at No. 4. Maja Bajorek is right behind Demunck with seven singles wins on the season.

The graduate pair of Lera Valeeva and Kristina Kozakova and the youthful team of Bajorek and Mia Mayerova are tied for the most doubles wins this year so far. Both pairs have six doubles victories. 

Weekend Six Recap
The Redhawks got back to .500 (7-7) and went undefeated last weekend going 2-0. SEMO had a 6-0 win over UT Southern Saturday morning and a very close 4-3 victory over former OVC school the Belmont Bruins later that evening. 

Against UT Southern the Redhawks captured the doubles point winning all three doubles matches. In singles play Lera Valeeva on court one, Krsitina Kozakova at No. 6, and Maja Bajorek at position three all won 6-0 in straight sets. At positions No. 4 and 5 Juliette Demunck and Yontha Tadoum won 6-0, 6-1 in straight sets.

Against the Bruins, the Redhawks captured the doubles point again with Valeeva and Kozakova clinching the doubles point for Redhawks winning 6-4 against  Viktoria Kliimand and Hana Sokolovic on court two. In singles action Kozakova and Mia Mayerova would capture two more points for SEMO with straight set wins. Belmont would then win the next three singles matches and tie the match 3-3. Demunck would capture the fourth and game winning point in a great three set match against Hamilton.

Looking Ahead
After the Paducah weekend the Redhawks will be traveling to the sunshine state to Villanova University on March 8 at the USTA National Tennis complex in Orlando, Florida.