Women’s Tennis Concludes Homestand with Michigan State and Michigan

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Penn State women’s tennis concludes a nine-match homestand with Michigan State and Michigan this weekend as the team returns to Big Ten play.  

The Nittany Lions (9-1, 0-1 Big Ten) will face the Spartans (7-4, 0-1 Big Ten) on Friday at 5 p.m. and the Wolverines (3-4, 0-0 Big Ten) on Sunday at 11 a.m. Both matches will be played at the Indoor Tennis Center. 

After defeating No. 25 Yale on March 1, the Blue & White jumped 28 spots in the latest ITA team rankings to No. 38. On the individual side, Olivia and Dorner and Maelie Monfils, fresh off a win over the No. 11 doubles tandem, checked in at No. 75 in the ITA doubles rankings.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 

• Penn State is coming off a 4-2 win over No. 25 Yale on March 1, which is the program’s second top 25 victory in as many seasons. 

• Dorner and Monfils clinched the doubles point for the Blue & White with a monumental, 7-5 victory over No. 11 Orly Ogilvy and Leena Friedman. It was the pair’s third ranked triumph of the 2025-26 campaign and the highest-ranked win in doubles and singles play this season. 

• Patricia Grigoras and Maiko Uchijima joined Dorner and Monfils with a doubles win against Erin Ha and Angela Huang, 6-3. 

• Uchijima was the first singles competitor to pick up a win as she cruised to a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Julia Werdiger on court two. 

• Brianna Baldi was next as she took a court four triumph over Huang. After dropping the first set, Baldi responded in a big way, taking the match, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. 

• Maria Daciana Ciubotaru clinched the match for Penn State with a dominant showing. She defeated Ha, 6-2, 6-2, on court six for the fifth match-clinching victory of her career, including both of Penn State’s top 25 wins over the past two seasons. 

ACROSS THE NET 

MICHIGAN STATE 

• Michigan State enters the weekend with a 7-4 record with one loss in Big Ten play against No. 2 Ohio State, 4-1. The Spartans’ most recent match was at Bucknell where they defeated the Bison, 5-2. 

• MSU has dropped results against the Ivy League’s Princeton, Columbia and Dartmouth by a combined score of 12-3.  

• The Spartans have defeated four MAC foes in Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Ball State and Toledo in addition to Xavier and Gonzaga. 

• Ellie Blackford ranks No. 109 in the latest ITA singles rankings. She holds a 6-3 record in dual matches this season, including a victory over Ohio State’s No. 67 Nao Nishino. 

MICHIGAN 

• Michigan is ranked No. 40 by ITA with a 3-4 record with a trip to No. 2 Ohio State on Friday before heading east to Happy Valley for Sunday’s contest. 

• All four of the Wolverines’ losses have come at the hands of top 20 teams at the time they played: No. 19 Vanderbilt, No. 15 Virginia, No. 4 Auburn and No. 8 NC State. Auburn and NC State are still currently inside the top 10. 

• Michigan recently took down No. 20 Duke, 4-3, on March 1. U-M has also defeated Penn and Xavier. 

• The Wolverines have three ranked singles players: No. 14 Piper Charney (2-5 dual match singles record), No. 15 Lily Jones (4-2) and No. 123 Reese Miller. 

• Michigan has two ranked doubles pairs: No. 36 Jones and Jessica Bernales (1-1 dual match doubles record) and No. 68 Charney and Emily Sartz-Lunde (2-1). 

SERIES HISTORY 

MICHIGAN STATE 

• Penn State owns a 22-15 advantage in the all-time series against Michigan State with the first match happening in 1992. 

• The Spartans got the better of the Nittany Lions a season ago in East Lansing by a 4-2 margin. The last match played in Happy Valley was a 4-1 victory for PSU in 2024.  

• The home team has had the edge recently with the Blue & White being the last one to win on the road when the Nittany Lions earned a 4-3 victory on February 5, 2021.  

MICHIGAN 

• Michigan holds a 33-5 lead in the series dating back to 1980. 

• Penn State last won a match in the series in 2001.  

• Last year, the Nittany Lions dropped a 4-1 decision to the Wolverines.