ABILENE, Texas – Paloma Hennicaux and Valeria Carreño Torres won a flight championship in doubles as the UTEP tennis team continued to impress at the ACU Invitational Saturday. The duo went back and forth with Maria Cascos and Hebe Toyos (ACU) before emerging victorious, 7-6, to claim the crown. It is the Miners' first flight championship in doubles since 2022 (Thassane Abrahim and
Veronika Lebisova) and the third in the past eight years.
Hennicaux was also locked in from the opening point in singles en route to a 6-3, 6-4, vanquishing of Maria Lora (Texas State). The effort propelled her to her second victory in as many days. She is now 5-0 on the young season in singles action and will lock up against Chantajah Mills (Texas State) with a flight title on the line Sunday.
Overall, on the day the Orange and Blue finished 6-3 (2-1 in doubles, 4-2 in singles). They are now 12-9 in a stacked tournament field through two days of play.
"We started with doubles this morning. Lotti and Hanna won the back draw of flight one while Zu and Candy lost a close one in the finals of flight two to come in second place," UTEP head coach
Ivan Fernandez said. "Palo and Vale won flight three, going 3-0 for the weekend. In singles, Palo won her semifinal match to remain undefeated for the tournament and make it to the finals tomorrow. Candy, Lotti, and Hanna will all play in the singles final of the back draw in their respective flights. Overall, we played hard today and improved from yesterday. We hope to keep it going one more day."
Carlotta Mencaglia and
Hanna Telzynska ousted Valeria Sanchez and Aoka Nagasawa (UTSA) with ease, 6-2, to claim the crown in the back draw. The duo finished 2-1 at the event and is now 5-1 on the campaign.
Zuzanna Szczepanska and
Candice Bernier secured runner-up honors in their flight after falling, 6-4, in a hard-fought match against Clara Sobius and Maria Castano (Tarleton State).
Bernier marched into the back draw final with a come-from-behind 4-6, 6-4, 10-8, win vs. Tadiwa Mauchi (Texas State). Mencaglia did the same in her flight by taking out Kayla Schefke (SMU), 6-3, 7-6. Also finding redemption in the back draw was Telzynska, who dug deep to down Montana Parkinson-Lubold (NM State), 6-4, 4-6, 10-5.
Szczepanska was upended by Anna Pinaieva (NM State), 6-2, 6-2, while
Wendy Zhang fell to Whitney Moon (NM State), 6-1, 6-3.
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