Wahine advance in BWC tennis tournament

Fifth-seeded Hawaii advanced to the semifinals of the Big West women’s tennis tournament with a 4-1 win over fourth-seeded UC Davis on Thursday in Irvine, Calif.

The Rainbow Wahine (7-7) will face No. 1 seed UC Santa Barbara at 6 a.m. today at Irvine Great Park for a spot in Saturday’s final.

UH opened the tournament by dropping the doubles point when UC Davis’ Shirley Hall and Michelle Zell edged UH’s Nikola Dolakova and Satsuki Takamura in a tiebreak 7-6 (5) after the teams split the first two matches of the quarterfinal.

UH then rolled to four wins in straight sets in singles play and Dolakova earned the clinching point with a 6-2, 7-6(4) win over Yana Gurevich on the No. 2 court.

The fourth-seeded UH men’s tennis team (4-3) opens its Big West tournament run today, also against UC Davis.