The Cougs made history on the hard courts Friday, capturing the National Invitational Tournament championship and the program’s first-ever postseason title in 4-0 sweep of No. 34 Charlotte at the Rome Tennis Center on the Berry College Campus in Georgia.
No. 41 WSU followed up its identical 4-0 victories over Northern Illinois and North Texas in the quarterfinal and semifinal matches with a dominant finish against the 49ers in the championship. Those winning ways began on Court 1, where the team’s No. 1 doubles pair, ranked 61st nationally, defeated Charlotte’s top duo.
“I am so proud of this team. They worked hard all year on bringing their best every day, to practices, to the gym and to the classroom as well,” head coach Raquel Atawo said.”They really played for each other and left everything they had out there. Super happy for this team and the program to end with a championship.”
The top pair of juniors Eva Alvarez Sande and Maxine Murphy opened up the morning with a quick 6-2 Cougar victory over Sara Suchankova and Amira Badawi. Redshirt senior Hania Abouelsaad and freshman phenom Martina Puvill followed suit, clinching the doubles point with a 6-2 win over Prisca Abbas and Lucia Aranda and giving the Cougs a 1-0 lead. Senior Elyse Tse and freshman Chisato Kanemaki, the team’s No. 2 doubles, were leading Ni Xi and Shona Nakano 5-2 when the point was clinched.
The Cougs continued their dominance on the singles side with the team’s No. 4 and No. 5 singles players, Abouelsaad and Kanemaki, claiming the second and third team points within minutes of each other. The former, an Egypt native, defeated Lucia Aranda 6-0, 6-3. The Japanese Kanemaki flipped Abouelsaad’s score, winning 6-0, 6-3 over Abbas.
The Cougs then clinched point No. 4 and the match with a victory at the top singles spot. Alvarez Sande came out of the gates slow against Suchankova, dropping the first set 3-6. Things began to click though for Spaniard in the second set, where she cleaned things up with a 6-1 set win. The third set was no different, as Alvarez Sanda breezed to another 6-1 set and fittingly claimed the championship for WSU.
Three matches were stopped as Alvarez Sande wrapped things up for the Cougs. The 49ers were behind in every single match, with Murphy, Tse and Puvill all leading or remaining tied in their respective singles matches.
The tournament win was not only the program’s first postseason championship but also the Cougs’ first postseason appearance since the 2019 NCAA championships. The program had made just seven previous appearances.
The 2024-25 team made history in several categories, including capturing the programs second-ever 20-win season, finishing 20-8. The team finished 21-7 in 2018. The team also went 11-0 on the road. Alvarez Sande, Murphy, Tse and Abouelsaad all finished with 20-plus victories, the first time since 2019 that four WSU players reached that mark.
Those four players and Martina Markov earned All-West Coast Conference honors this season. Alvarez Sande and Murphy were both first-team selections while Tse, Abouelsaad and Markov were honorable mentions.
The championship win redeemed a 4-2 semifinal loss to San Diego in the WCC tournament.
