Box Score

BOISE, Idaho (UNLVRebels.com) - Unable to recover from losing a hotly contested doubles session, the top-seeded UNLV women's tennis team was upset 4-2 by second-seeded Fresno State Sunday in the finals of the Mountain West Championship at the Appleton Tennis Center.

Suffering their first loss to a MW opponent since last year's final, the regular-season division champion Rebels finished the season at 16-6 overall and 7-1 against MW opponents in 2018. The Bulldogs, who earned the league's NCAA Tournament automatic bid, improved to 12-12 overall.

Just eight days after UNLV went to California and eased by Fresno State 5-2 to close out the regular season, the Bulldogs flipped the script in the neutral-site setting. Just like the previous meeting, the Rebels won at the top of the doubles lineup while the Bulldogs took it on court three. The difference came in the middle where Fresno State won this time around, 7-5, by rallying to win the final three games of the set and earning a 1-0 lead.

Needing to simply split the six singles matches, the Bulldogs won the first set on a trio of courts and eventually closed each one out to clinch it. UNLV got its points on courts one and four and was leading at the third position when it was halted.

REBEL OF THE MATCH: MW Player of the Year Aiwen Zhu bounced back from a rough semifinals performance to team with En-Pei Huang for a 6-3 victory over 44th-ranked Emma Wilson and Georgia Lawson in doubles and then score her team's first point of the day with a straight set win over Wilson at the top of the singles lineup.

NET NOTES: UNLV saw its seven-match winning streak snapped … When Jovana Kenic fell 6-2, 6-1 to Lawson on court five, it marked the junior's first loss in 10 dual-match outings this season … This marked the second time these two teams faced each other in a MW final. In the previous meeting, UNLV downed Fresno State 4-2 in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2016 … The Rebels have appeared in 10 of the 19 Mountain West Championship Finals, posting a 5-5 record.

QUOTABLE: "Fresno State was the better team today and deserved to win." -UNLV Head Coach Kevin Cory

NEXT FOR THE REBELS: While the team's season is over, Zhu is expected to earn a spot in the NCAA Singles Championship's 64-player field. That event will be hosted by Wake Forest University in North Carolina from May 23-28.

Women's Tennis Match ResultsMOUNTAIN WEST CHAMPIONSHIP â€" FINALFRESNO STATE 4, UNLV 2April 29, 2018, at Boise, ID(Appleton Tennis Center)
 Singles competition 1. #69 Aiwen Zhu (UNLV) def. Emma Wilson (FS) 7-6 (7-5), 6-22. Katerina Stloukalova (FS) def. Izumi Asano (UNLV) 6-2, 3-6, 6-23. En-Pei Huang (UNLV) vs. Juliane Triebe (FS) 7-5, 5-6, unfinished4. Anna Bogoslavets (UNLV) def. Ndindi Ndunda (FS) 6-3, 7-55. Georgia Lawson (FS) def. Jovana Kenic (UNLV) 6-2, 6-16. Olivia Noble (FS) def. Samantha Li (UNLV) 6-2, 6-3
 Doubles competition 1. #77 Aiwen Zhu/En-Pei Huang (UNLV) def. #44 Emma Wilson/Georgia Lawson (FS) 6-32. Juliane Triebe/Alessia Dario (FS) def. Anna Bogoslavets/Juliet Zhang (UNLV) 7-53. Ndindi Ndunda/Abbey Watanabe (FS) def. Izumi Asano/Samantha Li (UNLV) 6-4
Order of finish: Doubles (1,3,2); Singles (5,6,1,4,2)