DENVER – The University of Denver women's tennis team began its 2024 dual match season with a 5-0 win over Air Force at Denver Tennis Park on Saturday.
 
Denver captured the doubles point with just three games lost across the two completed matches before earning four straight-sets singles wins to clinch the team's first win of the year.
 
Doubles:
DU captured the doubles point with its first of four bagel sets of the day from the team of sophomores Caroline Driscoll and Louise Wikander before graduate student Britt Pursell and junior Andrea Burguette Beltran sealed it with a 6-3 win on Court 1. Denver's No. 1 team broke in its first return game and maintained the break lead through to the end.
 
Though the No. 3 team of sophomores Claudia Martinez de Velasco and Alice Otis did not complete its match, the Denver duo was up a break at 5-3 and about to serve for the match.
 
Singles:
Denver's first singles victory of the year came from Driscoll on Court 3. She broke in her second return game to take a 2-1 lead in the opening set before breaking again for a 4-1 lead that became a 6-1 set win. She matched that score in the second set, again gaining a break lead early before pushing to a 5-1 lead once more.
 
Just a few minutes later, Driscoll's doubles partner Wikander gave Denver the 3-0 lead with a double bagel – the first of her career after dropping just one game in two different matches last season.
 
Otis and Beltran finished within a minute of each other to close out the win for Denver with the sophomore winning first and credited with the clinching point. Her first set started out on serve before she broke for a 3-2 lead that she stretched to 5-2. She broke early in the second set on her way to a 6-3 win for her first victory as a Pioneer.
 
On Court 1, Beltran wrapped up a fifth point for DU with a bagel to start. She won her seventh-straight game in a break to start the second set, though Air Force's Van Houweling earned a break back. Beltran would retake the break lead at 4-3 and closed it at 6-3.
 
Pursell and Martinez de Velasco did not complete their matches, though both showed fight on their respective courts after trading breaks and fighting back from a break down at least once each.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver women's tennis team plays its second match in as many days when it hosts Colorado State at Denver Tennis Park on Sunday, January 21, at 4 p.m. MT.
 
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