West Virginia’s Quest for Postseason Success: A Meeting of Powerhouse Tennis Teams in the 2024 UTR Sports NIT Championship
The West Virginia University tennis team is set to compete against Pacific in the quarterfinal round of the 2024 UTR Sports NIT Championship at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, May 6th at the IMG Academy Tennis Courts in Bradenton, Florida. The match will be broadcast on Prime Video and final results will be available on WVUsports.com.
This will be the first meeting between West Virginia (14-12, 3-10 Big 12) and Pacific in program history. The winner of this match will go on to face the winner of the Tulsa/Wyoming match in the semifinal round on Tuesday, May 7th.
West Virginia’s previous defeat to Baylor in the first round of the Big 12 Tennis Championship on April 17th has motivated them to continue their journey towards success in postseason tournaments. Throughout the season, the Mountaineers have been led by Senior Momoko Nagato, who has a 13-7 record in singles play. Additionally, redshirt sophomore Maja Dodik and junior Tatiana Lipatova have both achieved double-digit wins with 12 and 11 respectively.
In doubles play, Nagato and junior Michaela Kucharova have had success with a 12-8 overall record while Chang and Lipatova have a 6-5 record for the year. This marks West Virginia’s first appearance in a postseason tournament in program history and their most successful regular season with their most wins (14) since joining the conference in
