THIBODAUX, La. — The Sam Houston State women's tennis team opened Southland Conference action with a convincing 7-0 victory over Nicholls Friday.
 
The Bearkats (6-4, 1-0) won the doubles point to grab a 1-0 lead. Roos Gerritsen and Lusine Chobanyan defeated Lingfeng Gu and Carla Bouygues at No. 1 doubles 6-0, and Petra Kaszas and Constandena Nicolaou topped Simona Maksimovic and Mikaela Konstantinova 6-0 in the No. 3 spot.

"I'm really proud of the team today as they were really ready to start the conference season," head coach Rob Hubbard said. "They crushed it in the doubles and carried it right into the singles. Hopefully we can carry that same focus into Sunday's match versus UNO."
 
Sahaja Yamalapalli cruised to a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Laura Lopez to improve to 9-1 in No. 1 singles action, and Isidora Zivkovic (6-3) stopped Maksimovic 6-1, 6-2 at No. 2.
 
Karla De La Luz Montalvo (4-4) defeated Bouygues 6-0, 6-1 at No. 3 singles, and Chobanyan (6-4) topped Gu 6-3, 6-2 at No. 4.
 
In No. 5 singles play, Nicolaou (5-5) defeated Konstantinova 6-2, 6-4, while Emma Goedkoop (7-3) won at No. 6 singles over Morgan Forshag 6-3, 6-1.
 
The Bearkats stay in Louisiana to face New Orleans Sunday at 10 a.m.