No. 4 seed BYU takes on No. 5 seed Saint Mary's to open WCC tournament play

CLAREMONT, Calif. – The BYU women's tennis team earns the No. 4 seed in the West Coast Conference Championship and will take on No. 5 seed Saint Mary's in the first round Thursday, April 26 at 1:00 p.m. PST.

The Cougars (13-8, 6-3 WCC) will compete against the Gaels (12-8, 6-3 WCC) for the second time in the last five days. In the final regular season match last Saturday, BYU won a 4-3 battle over Saint Mary's after two big comeback wins in No. 1 and No. 2 singles.

In similar fashion, at the 2017 WCC tournament, the No. 6 seed Cougars upset the No. 3 seed Gaels in another 4-3 win to advance to the second round. With the match tied 3-3, then freshman Samantha Smith clinched at fourth singles to help BYU defeat Saint Mary's in a narrow victory.

The winner of Thursday's match will take on No. 1 seeded Pepperdine the following day at 2:00 p.m. PST. For the full tournament schedule, checkout WCC's website.

BYU

BYU enters the tournament on a two-match win streak and its highest season winning percentage in 10 seasons. The Cougars surprised the league officials throughout the season. In the WCC preseason selections, BYU was predicted to finish sixth, but overcame naysayers to finish in fourth place.

Freshman Anastasia Abramyan in No. 2 singles was just named WCC Single Player of the Week and also won WCC Doubles Player of the Week for the second time this season with teammate Mayci Jones. The No. 1 doubles duo was ranked No. 41 in the latest ITA/Oracle rankings and have a 8-3 record. BYU hopes to use this success as momentum going into tournament play.

Saint Mary's

The Gaels' freshmen duo, Hind Abdelouahid and Mariia Kozyreva, are 10-5 as the top doubles pair. No. 37 in the latest Oracle/ITA rankings, the duo is 6-4 in their last 10 matches. In their last meeting against Abramyan and Jones, the two lost to BYU 6-1.

Saint Mary's earned an notable 4-3 victory over No. 2 seed Gonzaga to win four straight before losing to BYU last Saturday. 

All live scoring links can be found on the WCC website.