Rutgers University
Drexel
Tennis Closes Out Homestand Against Drexel Friday Afternoon
Jan 26 | Women's Tennis
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The Rutgers women's tennis team (2-0) will finish out its three-match homestand on Friday, Jan. 27 as the team welcomes Drexel (1-0) to the East Brunswick Racquet Club for a 12 p.m. match.
Strong Start
The Scarlet Knights got off to a hot start this spring, sweeping Bucknell and Binghamton last weekend to open the season. This marks the first time the team has started off 2-0 since the 2020 spring season.
Jackeline Lopez led the team in the victories with dominant straight set singles wins on the top court in both matches. All 12 singles matches were decided in straight sets for RU.
Rutgers also played solid in doubles, earning the first point in each match.
Fall 2022 Recap
Rutgers competed in four tournaments this fall – the Bulldog Invitational, ITA Regionals, Princeton Invitational and the Big Green Invitational.
Jackeline Lopez led the team with nine singles wins including four consecutive victories to start the season. She went on another big five-match swing toward the end of the fall, as well. Lopez only dropped three matches during the campaign.
Amira Badawi also had a strong fall, going 8-3 in singles play. She won her last four matches of the season and went 8-2 in her last 10 outings.
The newcomer pair of Mai Nguyen and Tara Chilton topped the doubles statistics with an 8-3 record, going 6-1 together to start the season. The duo of Chloe Brown and Badawi also showed out with an undefeated 4-0 mark. Nguyen led the team with a 9-3 overall doubles record.
Transferring In
RU welcomed two transfers this offseason in Amira Badawi (NJIT) and Tara Chilton (Washington).
Badawi, a native of Cairo, Egypt, compiled a 30-7 record with NJIT over two seasons, including an impressive 22-5 mark playing in the top three singles spots for the Highlanders in 2021-22, a season that ended with a second place showing in the Southland Conference Tournament.
In her two seasons at Washington, Chilton compiled an 18-18 singles and 17-14 doubles record. Last year as a sophomore, Chilton and the No. 37 Huskies played to a 14-12 overall record and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. She went 7-2 in singles tournament play including reaching the round of 32 at ITA Northwest Regional.
Freshmen Duo
Rutgers also welcomed two freshmen to the squad, Mai Nguyen and Arina Volitova.
Ranked top 75 nationally, Nguyen arrives "On The Banks" from Atlanta, Georgia. She was the 2019 Southern Doubles Champions and finished in fifth in National Doubles. She was also the 2020 Georgia State Champion and 2021 Winter Southerns Champions.
A product of Bratislava, Slovakia, Valitova comes to the US after finding success in the European Junior circuit. She won the ITF Juniors tournaments and Tennis Europe tournaments in both singles and doubles. Valitova also won the singles J5 in Islamabad in Nov. 2020 in addition to the singles J5 in Harare in Dec. 2020. In doubles, she came out on top in the J3 in Harare in Nov. 2021 and J4 in Estonia in May 2021. She is also a member of Russian National Beach Tennis Team (U18) and won the Juniors European Championship in doubles.
Scouting the Dragons
Drexel is 1-0 on the season so far, picking up a 4-3 win at Fordham last weekend to kick off the spring.
Lori Lemongo led her team with a win on the first singles court. Renata Lombera (No. 2), Isabel Cabrerizo (No. 4) and Mya Fuentes (No. 6) also picked up singles victories over the Rams.
Looking Ahead
Rutgers will travel to Army (Feb. 3) for its road opener followed by Yale (Feb. 4) next weekend.
Players Mentioned
