Women's Tennis Finishes Historic Run at ITA Regional Championships

Thursday, October 8

Cincinnati, Ohio

Lipscomb University

ITA Ohio Valley Regional Championships

Monday Recap Box Score (PDF)Draws/Final Bracket

Mariia Dolzhenko with fist clenched after winning a point

10/14/2026 8:03:00 AM | Women's Tennis

Box Score Monday Recap

Mariia Dolzhenko and Deborah Dominguez Collado reach quarterfinals for the first time in the event in program history; Dolzhenko finishes as a semifinalist.

CINCINNATI – Over the last few seasons for Lipscomb University Women's Tennis, there have been a lot of firsts: a team national ranking, beating long-time conference foes regularly and posting double digits in the win column in the spring. However, the 2026-27 season has added another first: seeing not one, but two players reach the quarterfinals and even the semifinals of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Ohio Valley Regional Championships from Oct. 8-13 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, hosted by Cincinnati and Miami of Ohio.

Prior to this season, Lipscomb advanced as far as the Round of 16 in singles. Mariia Dolzhenko changed the narrative there, as she was one of the last four players standing, joining Donna LeRoux and Asuncion Jadue of Kentucky and Valeria Ray of Vanderbilt.

Winning four matches over the course of the tournament, Dolzhenko (6-4) advanced to Tuesday's semifinal after defeating top-see and No. 14 ranked Ray, 7-5, 6-4, to earn the highest victory of a ranked opponent in program history by any player.

Tuesday, her run came to an end with a 6-0, 6-1 loss to No. 56 Zhu, the three-seed in the tournament.

Qualifying for the semifinals, Dolzhenko now has an opportunity to participate in the ITA Sectional Championship on Nov. 5-8 in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee. The regions participating in the sectional are the Ohio Valley, Southeast and Southern.

Based on the selection criteria, 32 singles players will participate in the Main Draw and Regional Championship semifinalists are listed as the fourth-highest priority.

Players who finish at least in the semifinals of the Sectional Draw will qualify for the NCAA Division I Individual Championships from Nov. 17-22 in Athens, Georgia.

OTHER SINGLES RESULTS
Deborah Dominguez Collado (9-3) also has a chance to qualify for Sectionals, as she finished in the quarterfinals of the main draw at Regionals, which is the sixth-highest priority when determining draws.

Advancing out of the qualifying draw, the senior won five total rounds to advance to the round of eight, defeating players from Indiana, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Purdue.

It did not start out the right way for Collado, as she lost the first set to Gabby Gregg of Indiana, 0-6, before rallying to win the next two, 6-3, 7-5.

She also prevailed in back-to-back rounds that saw seven-point tiebreaks. In the Round of 32 versus Gabrielle Guenther of Cincinnati, Collado won the first set with a 7-2 break and followed that with a 6-4 win to advance.

In the next round, after falling to Nehir Dogan of Purdue 4-7 in a second-set break, Collado came back strong with a 6-2 rout in the deciding set to advance to the quarters.

Other highlights include Sarah Stoyanov (3-1) taking down Emily Schut of Western Kentucky, 6-1, 6-3, in the Qualifying Draw.

DOUBLES HIGHLIGHTS
Serafima Bobrovnikova and Stoyanov defeated Northern Kentucky's Catharina Cardoso and Sydney Zakic in the Round of 64 that needed a break to decide the set. It was Lipscomb that edged NKU, 8-6, to earn the victory.

UP NEXT
Lipscomb will be back home this weekend participating in the Lipscomb Hidden Dual, starting on Friday.