UIC Match Results
Strakhova Video Interview
 
DETROIT (4/10/2013) -- The University of Detroit Mercy women's tennis team made a little history on Saturday as Detroit took down the UIC Flames in Chicago with a 4-3 win to break a conference win streak of 146-straight matches for the Flames.

UIC (11-5, 3-1 Horizon League) is the defending Horizon League champions in women's tennis. The UIC women are the defending champions for the last 16 Horizon League Women's Tennis Championships to be exact and have completely dominated the Horizon League in women's tennis. According to the UIC website, the Flames had not been defeated by a conference opponent since the 1996 season, when they fell to Green Bay (April 21, 1996) in the postseason tournament final.

Detroit (9-5, 3-2 HL) has played UIC at least once every year since 2002 and a total of 17 matches overall including a semifinal contest and two championship matches. The Flames had won them all until Saturday.
 
Further, the Titans have scored two points against UIC in three of those 17 losses with the last time coming in 2008. The remaining 14 losses saw Detroit post one point or held scoreless by the Flames. 

"We had great energy from beginning to the end. The team kept believing in themselves and fought very hard to the end and that was the difference maker today," said women's tennis head coach Pjotrs Necajevs after the match who is now in his second full year as the team's coach. "This is a huge win for the program. We are rewriting the history from the beginning."

The Titans started by taking the doubles point as Nino Sujashvili and Irina Slizovskaya took second doubles with an 8-4 win and Raina Halabi and Chloe Karoub won an 8-6 decision at third doubles.

Slizovskaya and Valery Kulikovskaya both took singles victories and Elena Strakhova captured the clinching point in three sets playing at sixth singles. Strakhova talked to TitansTV about the monumental win and you can see it HERE.

UDM finished the weekend with three victories in three days winning 7-0 at IUPUI on Friday and ending with a second 7-0 win over Valparaiso on Sunday. On Tuesday, Slizovskaya was named the Horizon League Women's Tennis Player of the Week after a 6-0 weekend. She was 3-0 at third singles and was also 3-0 at second doubles playing with Julia Fernandes Friday at IUPUI and then pairing with Sujashvili Saturday and Sunday.

Kulikovskaya and Slizovskaya now lead Detroit in singles wins in the dual-match season with 10 apiece, while both are 4-1 in Horizon League matches. Strakhova is right behind with nine wins while Karoub and Fernandes are both at seven. Combined this year in dual matches, Detroit is 50-34 in singles and 30-10 in doubles.

Overall, Kulikovskaya leads the team with 20 singles wins with Strakhova close behind at 18. The record for UDM single-season victories is 26 with Kulikovskaya currently in a tie for ninth place on the list.

As a team in the fall, the Titans were 41-29 overall in singles play with an 18-9 mark in doubles action. Sujashvili was the singles leader in wins for UDM with a perfect 11-0 record, while Kulikovskaya racked up 10 wins and Strakhova went 8-3.

Last year, Detroit advanced to the Horizon League Semifinals for the sixth straight season after entering the tournament as the No. 6 seed with a 7-13 record, including 3-5 in conference matches. The Titans earned a match with No. 3 seed Milwaukee. The Panthers had defeated Detroit 7-0 a week earlier in Wisconsin to close the regular season, but the sixth-seeded UDM squad exacted revenge with a first round upset and a 4-3 win. The Titans would fall to Cleveland State in the semifinals in the next match.

Detroit will have some time to focus on closing out the remaining 2013 conference slate. The Titans will host Green Bay on April 19 and Milwaukee on April 20 to wrap up the Horizon League and 2013 dual-match schedule before the Horizon League Championships come on April 26-28 in Indianapolis. The times and locations for Detroit's final home matches are subject to change depending on the weather. If the weather permits, the matches will be played on the Titan Tennis Courts at the James K. Campbell Complex on the UDM campus.