HARRISONBURG, Va. – James Madison women's tennis returned to the win column on Sunday with a hard-fought 5-2 victory against Cornell at the East Campus Tennis Courts.
The Dukes improved to 2-3 on the year, while the Big Red fell to 0-2.
JMU picked up a pair of doubles victories to gain the early lead and won four of six singles matches to close out the weekend.
The Dukes began the day with wins on courts one and two to capture the early 1-0 lead.
For the second straight match, the team of
Daria Afanasyeva and
Kylie Moulin cruised to a 6-1 win on court two, dispatching the tandem of Alexandra Savu and Valeri Ho.
The Dukes wrapped up the doubles point with a big comeback on court one, as
Michelle Los Arcos and
Daniela Voloh reeled off six straight games to upend Maria Adiaconitei and Jenny Wong, 6-3.
JMU's
Hope Moulin and
Natalia Nikolopoulou also held a 5-3 lead on court three when doubles was halted due to the clinch.
Afanasyeva continued her dominance into singles, not dropping a single game en route to a 6-0, 6-0 triumph against Adiaconitei to give JMU a 2-0 match lead.
Cornell evened the match at 2-2 with wins on courts one and four.
JMU regained the lead on court five, as
Amanda Nord used a furious rally in the second to beat Ashley Huang in straight sets, at 6-1, 7-5. She trailed 5-2 in the second before winning five straight games.
The match was clinched in a three-set thriller on court three that lasted more than two-and-a-half hours and featured two tiebreaks. In a back-and-forth bout,
Kylie Moulin was able to win the third-set tiebreaker 7-5 to defeat Katherine Nguyen by scores of 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5).
With the team result in hand, Voloh closed out the day with a 7-5, 6-2 victory on court six versus Wong for the final margin.
UP NEXT
JMU is back in action on Saturday, Feb. 12 when it travels south to Lynchburg, Va., to face Liberty. The opening serve is set for 10 a.m.