{"id":629753,"date":"2026-04-25T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/629753\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:07:00","slug":"marshall-tennis-downs-south-alabama-in-sbc-quarterfinals-4-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/629753\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Tennis Downs South Alabama in SBC Quarterfinals, 4-1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Championship Fund<\/a>
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ROME, Ga. \u2013\u00a0The Marshall University Tennis team (14-10) advanced to the 2026 Sun Belt Conference Semifinals with a 4-1 win over the second-seeded South Alabama Jaguars on Friday in Rome, Georgia.
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The win marks back-to-back appearances in the SBC Semifinals for MU.
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We handled the adversity well. Looking forward to putting together another on tomorrow again, Herd Tennis Head Coach John Mercer said.
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For the second straight day, the Herd began the day strong in doubles with another 6-1 win from Thalia Smith and Polina Gumeniuk at number three doubles over the South Alabama pair of Ava Rath and Jade Marie.
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Johanna Strom and Alina Mokrynska then closed out the doubles point with a 6-2 triumph over Rio Maeda and Jana Rovira at number one.
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Gumeniuk opened singles with a straight-sets 6-4, 6-4, win at number two over Manal Ennaciri to extend the advantage to 2-0.
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After the Jags took number three to make 2-1, Nour El Ouazzani grabbed a point back for Marshall with a 7-6 (8), 6-3, victory over Rovira to make it 3-1.
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Then at number four, Sarah Copley grinded out a three-set triumph, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2, over Marie to send MU to the SBC semifinals.
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RESULTS
Doubles
No. 1 Johanna Strom<\/a>\/Alina Mokrynska (MU) def. Rio Maeda\/Jana Rovira (USA) 6-2
No. 2 Nour El Ouazzani<\/a>\/Sarah Copley (MU) vs. Manal Ennaciri\/Kenza Elakili (USA) 5-2 UF
No. 3 Thalia Smith<\/a>\/Polina Gumeniuk<\/a> (MU) def. Ava Rath\/Jade Marie (USA) 6-1
Order of finish: 3, 1
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Singles
No. 1 Johanna Strom<\/a> (MU) vs. Rio Maeda (USA) 6-3, 5-7, 1-0 UF
No. 2 Polina Gumeniuk<\/a> (MU) def. Manal Ennaciri (USA) 6-4, 6-4
No. 3 Cristina Tchanichev (USA) def. Alina Mokrynska<\/a> (MU) 6-1, 0-6, 6-1
No. 4 Sarah Copley<\/a> (MU) def. Jade Marie (USA) 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2
No. 5 Nour El Ouazzani<\/a> (MU) def. Jana Rovira (USA) 7-6 (8), 6-3
No. 6 Thalia Smith<\/a> (MU) vs. Kenza Elakili (USA) 7-5, 1-6, 5-1 UF
Order of finish: 2, 3, 5, 4
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UP NEXT
Marshall moves on to the SBC Semifinals with a contest against sixth-seeded App State with a start time of 1:30 p.m. in Rome, Georgia.
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To donate to the Championship Fund for Marshall tennis, please click\u00a0HERE<\/a>. All proceeds go directly to the Marshall tennis.
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For the latest information on Marshall women’s tennis, follow on Twitter and Instagram at @Herd_Tennis, on Facebook at Herd Tennis and online at HerdZone.com.
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To follow all Thundering Herd sports and get live stats, schedules, and free live audio, download the Marshall Athletics App for iOS or Android!
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—HerdZone.com—<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Championship Fund\u00a0ROME, Ga. \u2013\u00a0The Marshall University Tennis team (14-10) advanced to the 2026 Sun Belt Conference Semifinals with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-629753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}