Senior Claire Czerwonka (Kenosha, Wis. / Saint Joseph Catholic Academy) earned a singles victory over a quality Big East opponent, but visiting DePaul won the remaining singles matches and prevailed on all three doubles courts to top the Valparaiso University women’s tennis team 6-1 on Saturday evening at The Courts of Northwest Indiana. This marked the middle match of a busy three-match home weekend for Valpo.

How It Happened

• Czerwonka’s win came at No. 2 singles, as she bounced back from a Set 1 setback to win 5-7, 7-5, 10-8 over Alina Kuzmenkova.
• Claire’s younger sister Olivia played No. 1 singles for the first time in her collegiate career as her previous 17 matches had all come at No. 2. Olivia won two games in the first set and three in the second set, but dropped her match.
• Demi Jhaveri (Westlake, Ohio / Westlake) played a pair of close sets at No. 6 singles, but ultimately succumbed to Valentina Martin 6-4, 6-4.
• The Czerwonka sisters played the tightest doubles match, dropping a 7-5 battle at No. 1 to Yuliya Kizebasheva and Lenka Antonijevic of the Blue Demons (3-1).

Inside the Match

• Claire’s singles win was the 39^th of her collegiate career, snapping a three-way tie for ninth with Charmaine Stanislaw (2002-2006) and Kim Sajevic (2005-2009). Czerwonka now sits all alone in ninth place in the program record book and needs six more to jump into a tie for eighth.
• Claire’s win came over Kuzmenkova, a 2019 All-Big East Second Team honoree and two-time Big East all-academic team member.
• Olivia faced a tough test in her first No. 1 singles match, competing against Aspasia Avgeri. The fifth-year senior was a 2019 All-Big East First Team member and earned a spot on the 2018 All-Big East Second Team.  
• In the most recently completed season of 2018-19, DePaul went 6-2 in Big East play, won the Big East Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

Up Next 

Valpo (1-5) will close out a three-match home weekend by hosting Bowling Green on Sunday, the first matchup between those two teams since 2012. The Falcons (1-2) fell 5-2 at Xavier on Saturday.