The Eastern’s women’s tennis team endured one of its toughest and busiest weekends of its spring schedule, walking away with a 1-3 record in the matches.

In fact, Eastern’s four matches over the weekend mark its second-busiest weekend of the spring season, only second to the Panthers’ five-match weekend last weekend.

After starting the weekend with a 2-5 loss to Illinois State, Eastern bounced back and defeated Milwaukee 4-3 Jan. 25.

Starting matches by winning the doubles point is a priority for Eastern, and despite losing the doubles point, the Panthers played well enough in the singles portion to come back and win.

Rachel Papavasilopoulos, who went 3-0 in singles matches over the weekend, won her singles match 6-1, 6-2.

Elizaveta Bukraba-Ulanova won straight sets at No. 4 singles, after losing the first set, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, to grab another point for Eastern.

Christine Gouws and Brittany Steven won the other points for Eastern to secure the victory. Steven won in three sets, and Gouws won in straight sets.

Before the win, though, the Panthers started the weekend with a road loss to Illinois State.

Like the Panthers did in every match, they lost the doubles point to Illinois State. Gouws and Lauren Ellis were able to narrowly win their doubles match, 7-6, but the two other Eastern duos were defeated handily.

The two lone Eastern points came from Papavasilopoulos and Bukraba-Ulanova.

Both came back from first-set losses, winning the last two sets in a row to get the victories.

Papavasilopoulos won 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, and Bukraba-Ulanova 1-6, 6-4, 7-6.

Against Illinois Sunday, Eastern was overpowered and lost 4-0.

Then, closing out the weekend with a later match Sunday, Eastern lost 5-2 to Eastern Michigan.

Papavasilopoulos and Ellis won its doubles match to start the match, 6-2, but the other Eastern duos could not secure the doubles point.

Papavasilopoulos and Ellis continued their winning in the singles portion as they were able to get Eastern’s two lone points by winning in straight sets.

Papavasilopoulos won 6-4, 6-2, and Ellis shut out her opponent, 6-0, 6-0.

The Panthers now stand at 5-4 for the season. Eastern still has a month and a half until conference play starts, so they have plenty of non-conference matches to play in and prepare for the conference schedule.

The women’s tennis team will play against Northern Illinois Saturday at 5 p.m.

After that, Eastern has two weeks off before playing Valparaiso Feb. 16.

Eastern does not play at home this spring until March 20, when they face Southern Illinois Edwardsville.

Bailey Scoggins can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].