THIS WEEK: The No. 69-ranked Washington State tennis team will head to Ojai, Calif., to compete at the Pac-12 Championships, April 21-24 at the Ojai Athletic Club. The Cougars ended the 2016 dual season with a 17-9 (2-8 Pac-12) record.
PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP ROSTER: The Cougars will send four to the Pac-12 Championships including: senior Trang Huynh, junior Victoria Matejevic, and freshmen Aneta Miksovska and Barbora Michalkova.
COUGARS RANKED IN ITA POLL: Boasting a 17-9 record, Washington State checks in at No. 69 in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association poll. WSU reached a high of No. 40 earlier this season.
PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKETS: Trang Huynh and Barbora Michalkova will represent Washington State in the championship singles draw, while Victoria Matejevic and Aneta Miksovska will participate in the invitational singles draw. In doubles play, the duo of Huynh and Matejevic will compete in the women's doubles championship draw, while Miksovska and Michalkova will pair up and play in the doubles invitational draw.
SCOUTING THE PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIP: The Pac-12 Championships are made up of two singles and two doubles flights; no team scores will be kept. The Cougars will face a challenging field during the tournament, as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association has nine of the 11 teams participating nationally-ranked. Results from the Pac-12 Championships can be found at www.ojaitourney.org.
LAST TIME OUT: The Cougars traveled to Seattle to take on cross-state rival No. 55 Washington. Washington State claimed the opening doubles point with wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 positions. At No. 2, WSU's senior duo of Lize Leenknecht and Trang Huynh bested Stacey Fung and Elianne Douglas-Miron, 6-2. Maria Biryukova and Aneta Miksovska clinched the doubles point by posting a 6-3 win over Kenadi Hance and Tami Grende at No. 3 doubles. However, it was not enough as the Huskies won four-straight singles matches to take the team victory 4-1.
RECORD WATCH: Senior Maria Biryukova's win over #66 Kassidy Jump of Arizona State moved her into a tie for sixth on the WSU all-time wins list. She sits even with Andjela Kankaras (2009-13) and Erica Perkins (1998-02) on the list. The Moscow, Russia, native has accrued 87 victories at Washington State, needing only three more wins to tie Ekaterina Burduli (2004-08) for fifth on the all-time wins list.
BASHOTA MAKES HISTORY: Sophomore Donika Bashota recently cemented her place in the Washington State tennis record books. With a total of 36 victories, Bashota moved past Elisabeth Fournier (2012) on the single-season singles wins list. She passed her 31 wins from last season, which was a WSU freshman record. Furthermore, Bashota's 36-8 record, including a 19-6 mark in dual matches, passed Liudmila Vasilieva (2011-12) for the second-best start in school history.
SINGLE-SEASON WINS WATCH: Along with sophomore Donika Bashota, three other Cougars have entered the WSU single-season victories record book. Seniors Maria Biryukova and Trang Huynh have both accrued 30 victories this season. Biryukova matches her win total from last season. Biryukova and Huynh both move into a tie for fifth on the list. With a win last weekend, freshman Aneta Miksovska has garnered 29 victories on the year and moved into a tie with Elizaveta Luzina (2014) for sixth on the list. Miksovska passed Ekaterina Burduli (2008), Erin Majury (1983), Ksenia Googe (2012), and current teammate Victoria Matejevic, who won 28 matches last season. With two more victories, Miksovska will match current teammate Donika Bashota's 31 victories from last season, which is a WSU freshman record.
BASHOTA GARNERS PAC-12 HONOR: Sophomore Donika Bashota was named the Pac-12 Conference Women's Tennis Player of the Week for April 4-10. Bashota recorded two of the biggest upsets of her collegiate career last weekend, defeating No. 12 Klara Fabikova of California and No. 78 Caroline Doyle of Stanford. In Friday's match against Cal, Bashota provided the only Cougar victory as she fought off three-straight match points down 9-6 in the third-set tiebreaker for a 6-7, 6-0, 1-0 (11-9) win. In closing out the last five points of the match for the victory, she recorded the biggest win of her career and defeated the highest-ranked opponent by a Cougar player since the 2010 season. Bashota followed that up with another three-set win, this time over Stanford's Doyle. After splitting the first two sets, Bashota dominated the 10-point tiebreaker, taking the final seven points of the match, winning 5-7, 6-3, 1-0 (10-2). Bashota is the first Cougar to receive Player of the Week honors since Elizaveta Luzina did so Feb. 18, 2014.
COUGARS IN THE RANKINGS: Sophomore Donika Bashota earned a No. 67 national ranking in the latest ITA poll. This marks her highest ranking in the poll this season, surpassing her previous high mark of No. 71 in last week's ITA poll. In the first regional rankings of the year, Donika Bashota was named the No. 6 Northwest Regional player after finishing the 2015 fall season with a 15-1 record. Senior Trang Huynh garnered a No. 15 regional ranking following her first fall season of competition posting an 11-6 record.
ROSTER BREAKDOWN: For the 2015-16 season the Cougars have three new faces to go with five returners. The returning roster includes seniors Maria Biryukova and Lize Leenknecht, junior Victoria Matejevic, and sophomores Holly Monahan and Donika Bashota. New to the squad this season are senior Trang Huynh, who arrives in Pullman after transferring from Troy, along with freshmen Barbora Michalkova and Aneta Miksovska.
COACH HART: Lisa Hart is in her 13th season as the head coach of Washington State. Hart has accumulated 171 wins over her tenure. In 2012, the Cougars went 19-7 as Hart was awarded the Pac-12 Conference Women's Tennis Coach of the Year award.