LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The University of New Mexico Lobos took care of business in the opening round of the 2017 Mountain West Tennis Tournament, defeating the No. 6 Boise State Broncos for the second time this season, winning in shutout fashion 4-0. The Lobos, who earned the No. 11 seed in the tournament, will face the No. 3 seed San José State Spartans at 3 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday at the Fertitta Tennis Center on the campus of UNLV.
Dominique DulskiThe Lobos, who defeated Boise State 4-3 in Albuquerque on April 9 on Senior Day, went 4-1 in Mountain West play, but drew the No. 11 seed, which turned out to be a bad break for Boise State. The Lobos quickly went up 1-0 with the doubles point as Emily Olivier and Diana Wong won at No. 2 doubles over Hanna Kantenwein and Kirsty Venter 6-3. Within minutes, UNM won at No. 3 as Ludivine Burguiere and Cassie Chung defeated Jovana Kuljanin and Wiktoria Nosek 6-3.
The moved the match to singles, and UNM took a commanding lead when the Lobos won all six opening sets. The first to finish was Wong, who won her second straight match at No. 3 singles and her 11th overall, taking a 6-4, 6-0 straight set win over Lilian Poling. Wong hasn’t lost a match since February 17, going 11-0 over a span of 15 matches.
Dominique Dulski, who moved from No. 3 to No. 4 last week, won her second in a row, beating Nosek 6-1, 6-2 to give UNM a commanding 3-0 lead, and while UNM looked like they would drop the second set at No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5, none of that mattered. Cassie Chung at No. 6 singles won 6-0, 6-3 over Venter, giving UNM a 4-0 win in just a shade under two hours.
The win was UNM’s seventh in the last nine matches, and UNM improved to 8-13 overall. Boise State ended its season 13-9.
NOTES: The Lobos didn’t face San José State (11-7, 2-2 MW) during the season … the win was UNM’s second shutout of the season, having also defeated UTEP 4-0 back on March 24 … UNM is now 24-5 in April over the last four seasons … Wong improved the 15-5 overall … Burguiere’s doubles win was her team leading 12th of the season … UNM’s top three lineup slots are 16-39 in the Spring (.296) but the bottom three lineup slots are 30-16 (.652).