BROWNWOOD, Texas – The Concordia Texas women's tennis team opened their season in impressive fashion, defeating Howard Payne 6-3 to earn the first career win for Tornados' new head coach Luke Helm.
 
It was the first season opening win for the CTX women's tennis team since the program returned in 2015.
 
The Tornados went 2-1 in the doubles matches to start the day. Justus Aarhus and Danielle Cuteri along with Camille Kempf and Alexis Popovich both grabbed wins for CTX.
 
Aarhus and Cuteri won their match 8-4 while Kempf and Popovich earned and 8-0 sweep.
 
The combination of Leyla Martinez and Hayley Anderson kept it close throughout, but eventually fell 8-6.
 
CTX dropped the first two singles matches of the day before rallying to win the final four matches of the day and grabbing a 6-3 win.
 
In the singles, Aarhus (7-5, 6-0), Kempf (6-0, 6-0), Popovich (6-1, 6-0) and Alejandra Rueda (6-0, 6-4) all picked up wins. Both Martinez (3-6, 6-3, 10-5) and Anderson (3-6, 7-5, 10-5) went to a playoff tiebreaker, but dropped their matches.
 
The Tornados will continue non-conference play with a matchup against UT Dallas in Richardson, Texas, next Saturday beginning at 10:00 a.m.