BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU women’s tennis player Joana Vale Costa was selected to compete in the singles competition of the 2015 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Tennis Championships the NCAA announced Thursday.
Vale Costa was an at-large selection and became the first Lady Tigers since Megan Falcon in 2009 to be selected for the individual championships. The sophomore is also just the sixth Lady Tiger in school history to be selected for the singles championships.
The Lisbon, Portugal native is 30th in the singles rankings and holds a 15-9 record this season on court one. Vale Costa was also a member of the First-Team All-SEC as voted on by the league coaches.
Vale Costa provided two huge ranked wins for the Lady Tigers this season in singles and doubles. Vale Costa defeated No. 7 Sydney Campbell of Vanderbilt for the highest ranked win since 2008. Vale Costa along with partner Noel Scott also defeated No. 6 Pleun Burgmans and Emily Flickinger for the highest ranked doubles win since 2002.
The doubles team of Scott and Vale Costa is also the third alternate for the doubles championships. The duo is ranked 37th in the country.
The singles and doubles competition will be conducted May 20-25 at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas. All matches will be the best-of-three sets. Regular scoring and a 12-point tiebreaker at six-games-all will be used for all matches.
For more information on the LSU women’s tennis program follow the Lady Tigers on Twitter @lsuwten and @LSUJuliaSell, on Instagram @LSUWTen and on www.Facebook.com/lsuwten.