#3 Women's tennis welcomes a challenging week ahead after snagging two impressive victories. As they hit the road three times this week for contests against Hillsborough CC, #7 St. Thomas University, and then #2 Keiser University, and finally the tough week finishes with a contest versus #5 Xavier University of Louisiana
Southeastern triumphed twice this past week over Division I Colgate University and #18 in NAIA Ave Maria University in straight sets.
The Fire play well around each other and are led by #19 Martina Picardi on the singles side and Flaminia Guidantoni and Ingrid Montserrat boast the #40 doubles team in NAIA.
On Tuesday they take a trip over to Hillsborough Community College to battle the 2023 NJCAA national champions. The Hawks are a powerful JUCO squad, ranked #2 in NJCAA with multiple ranked members in singles and doubles, as well as wins over Division I schools and only one loss thus far this season to Division I Fairleigh Dickinson.
Friday takes the Fire to Miami Gardens for a top ten showdown versus Sun Conference rival, the #7 St. Thomas University Bobcats. The Bobcats are 2-4 on the season, they are 2-2 versus the NAIA and 0-2 versus Division II opponents, their most recent loss is to #2 Keiser University. Isabella Ciancaglini and Nataliya Slipchenko are the only ranked members for the Bobcats, landing at #43 in the Doubles polls.
On Saturday the Fire take on the NAIA titan Keiser University, the Seahawks have run the Sun Conference for the past several years winning the title in every year since the 2017-18 season. The Seahawks are home to the #1 doubles team in the NAIA in Vanja Vidanovic and Violet Apisah as well as the #9 doubles team in Isabella Perez and Yeva Kononovych. In singles there are three ranked for Keiser, #3 Violet Apisah, #4 Ecaterina Visnevscaia, and #29 Isabella Perez.
Sunday does not get any easier as the Fire come back to Miami Gardens for their rematch versus Xavier (La.). Southeastern has already seen the Gold Nuggets once this season, falling in the ITA Nationals 4-2 in the semifinals. Xavier (La.) boasts a powerful squad with the #7 Mbali Langa and McKenna Wheatley and #33 Amira Bergaoui and Valentina Largacha in doubles and five players ranked in singles, the highest in singles are Kyra Akinnibi and Langa at #15 and #16, Bergaoui falls at #57, Largacha at #64 and to round them out, Wheatley is #67.
The match on Tuesday vs. Hillsborough begins at 3 p.m., on Friday in Miami Gardens the first serve is at 10 a.m., the match on Saturday begins at 2 p.m. And to cap of the week, the Sunday contest is TBA.
