Washington State’s Tiffany Mylonas, Hikaru Sato achieve program first at NCAA Tennis Tournament

ORLANDO, Fla. – Tiffany Mylonas and Hikaru Sato became the first Washington State pair to win a match at the NCAA Tennis Doubles Championship when they rallied for a 1-6, 7-5, 10-7 victory over Winthrop’s Lauren Proctor and Megan Kauffman in the first round Tuesday at the USTA National Campus.

Meanwhile, WSU sophomore Michaela Bayerlova saw her season come to an end in the second round of the singles championship.

Mylonas and Sato, ranked No. 22 nationally, began their comeback late in the second set as they trailed 6-1, 4-1.

With the win, the Cougar pair improved to 27-6 on the season. Two other Cougar duos have reached the NCAA Doubles Championship, in 2001 and 2002, but this year marked the first win in program history.

Bayerlova, ranked No. 42 nationally, fell 6-0, 6-2 to No. 25 Katarina Stresnakova from Oklahoma State. Bayerlova’s season ends with a 23-8 singles record.

Gonzaga’s Sophie Whittle and Graciela Rosas also scored a big comeback, defeating Kentucky’s Justina Mikulskyte and Akvile Parazinskaite 4-6, 6-4, 12-10 after trailing 10-9 in the third-set tiebreaker.

Whittle and Rosas will meet No. 1-seeded Angela Kulikov and Rianna Valdes of USC on Wednesday.

The second set was tied at 4, but Whittle served the Zags to a 5-4 edge and the Zags took a break-point to win the set.

Whittle and Rosas improved their season mark to 21-3.