Mizzou tennis continued its fall season at the Battle for the Boot JAE Foundation Open in Fort Worth, Texas, collecting six singles victories and two doubles wins while gaining more experience against competitive opponents.

The Tigers competed at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center, facing players from Houston, TCU, Northwestern and BYU across three days of competition. Freshmen Irina Anghel, Leticia Bazan, Alba Salles Canudas and Daria Budko all contributed to Mizzou’s results, continuing a fall schedule focused on individual development and building chemistry as a team.

Head coach Robin Goodman viewed the tournament as another opportunity for the players to improve their competitive habits and continue developing together.

“A great tournament for our girls to continue to practice competing as a team,” Goodman said. “Seeing real progress in the way that they are playing and we’re happy about their growth over the last few weeks.”

Anghel and Bazan opened the tournament with straight-set singles victories against Houston opponents. Anghel defeated Iva Sepa 6-4, 6-0, while Bazan beat Alexia Puiac 6-2, 6-3. Salles Canudas added another win against Houston, battling through three sets to defeat Natalie Cinkova 7-5, 6-7(4), 10-4.

The Tigers also found success in doubles on the opening day. Anghel and Bazan teamed up to defeat TCU’s Raquel Caballero Chica and Maya Drozd 6-3, giving Mizzou an early victory in the doubles draw.

Budko delivered two of the team’s six singles wins during the tournament. She defeated Northwestern’s Mika Dagan Frutchman 6-2, 6-4 before closing the weekend with a 6-3, 6-0 victory against BYU’s Sue Yan Tan.

Budko also paired with Salles Canudas to defeat Houston’s Alice Stevens and Valeriia Krokhotina 7-5 in doubles competition.

Anghel secured her second singles victory of the weekend against BYU’s Chelsea Bluestein, winning 7-6(6), 6-3. While the Tigers encountered tougher results against Northwestern and BYU in other matchups, the weekend provided additional opportunities to test their games against different opponents.

Goodman emphasized that continued improvement will depend on maintaining the right approach as the fall semester progresses.

“We need to continue to be disciplined and compete the right way as we move into the latter stage of the fall semester,” he said.

Mizzou’s players will also compete in UTR Pro Tennis Tour events starting Oct. 26, where they will participate as individual players rather than representing the Tigers in collegiate team competition.

The UTR Pro Tennis Tour provides a competitive environment for eligible players to gain match experience and compete for prize money and tour ranking points. Women must have a Universal Tennis Rating of at least 8.5 and rank outside the top 200 of the PTT standings to meet the eligibility requirements.

The 20-player main draw features four groups of five players. Round-robin matches take place Monday through Friday, with players competing in best-of-three tie-break sets using regular scoring. The weekend playoff rounds feature single-elimination draws based on each player’s group-stage finish.

All of Mizzou’s players will compete independently during this stretch, giving them another opportunity to develop their individual games outside the collegiate team format.

Tiger Top Spin will return next week and Columns and Courts will be back with takeaways from the first few days of UTR competition.