TEMPE, Arizona – The No. 67-ranked University of Denver women's tennis team (16-8, 6-0 Summit) fell to No. 16 seed Arizona State, 0-4, in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Championships on Friday.
After dropping the doubles point, Denver continued to fight through singles, seeing sophomore
Natálie Cinková win her first set while senior
Marley Lambert rallied from a set down to force a tiebreak in her first set. ASU would go on to clinch the match, though, with wins at the Nos. 1, 5 and 6 courts.
DU was making its 12
th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.
Doubles:
Early conceded breaks at the Nos. 1 and 3 doubles matches ultimately determined the day's first point. In both cases, DU's No. 1 team of Lambert and freshman
Yunfei Cai, and its No. 3 team of Cinkova and senior
Zoe Adkins each gave up back-to-back breaks to fall behind 0-4 and 1-4, respectively, as the two ASU teams would go on to secure both matches.
Seniors
Claudia Martinez de Velasco and
Louise Wikander took a break lead for 2-1 at No. 2 doubles. ASU's Nupbay/Svetac had just broken back and leveled the set at 4-4 when the doubles point was clinched.
Singles:
Arizona State went up 2-0 overall with a win at No. 6 singles without dropping a game. The No. 1 singles match went in a similar fashion, though Wikander got on the board in the opening game of the first set.
In the first NCAA tournament singles match of her career, Cai could not recover from surrendering an early break at No. 5 singles. She held serve for her final four service games to stay alive but went on to drop it, 3-6. Again, a break for ASU's Aiya Nupbay in the third game was the turning point on her way to clinching the dual for the host team and No. 1 regional seed.
DU's remaining three singles players all kept their matches relatively tight. At No. 4 singles, Adkins dropped her first set in a similar fashion to Cai, but she came out firing in the second set. She claimed a 3-0 lead to begin things before ASU's Lily Taylor rallied to get back on serve, which is where the set remained unfinished.
The Nos. 2 and 3 courts both went to tiebreaks in their first sets. Lambert did so despite facing a 0-3 deficit first at No. 2 singles. She broke back to even things at 3-3 and after holds of serve for the rest of the set from both players, the set was determined by a breaker that Arizona State's Sara Svetec would claim in the end. The duo only completed one game in the second set before the match was abandoned.
Cinková prevented the ASU sweep of the first sets with her victory in a tiebreak. The DU sophomore held a break advantage midway through the first set, but ASU's Vivian Ovrootsky immediately got back on serve, which is where things stayed until the tiebreak. The two players each had won a game to begin the second set but got no farther into play once ASU clinched the win.
