Colorado Buffaloes Shine at 50th Annual Milwaukee Classic

GLENDALE, Wis. – On a long, crowded Saturday at the 50th Annual Milwaukee Classic, two Colorado players refused to blink.

By the time play wrapped at the Nicolet Tennis Center, Heidi Crncan and freshman newcomer Louise Ternstroem had stamped their authority all over the day: unbeaten in singles, united for a commanding doubles win, and setting the tone for a Colorado Buffaloes squad that looked sharper with every match.

Crncan and Ternstroem take charge

Colorado’s morning started with a surge. At 8 a.m., with the courts still waking up, the Buffs swept their opening doubles ties and grabbed early control of the day.

Crncan and Ternstroem were ruthless. Facing USF’s Sienna Leeson and Josefine Falster, they barely allowed the Bulls a foothold, rolling to a 6-1 victory that underlined how quickly their partnership is settling. Aggressive returns, clean holds, and almost no cheap errors – it was over in a hurry.

They could not back it up in the next round, falling 6-1 to LIP’s Deborah Collado Dominguez and Mariia Dolzhenko, but their response in singles said more about where this Colorado team is heading.

Crncan, the second-year from England, put together one of the most complete days of her young career. She brushed aside Milwaukee’s Karolina Skowronska 6-1, 6-2, then backed it up with another straight-sets win over LIP’s Collado Dominguez, 6-2, 6-3. Across four sets of singles, she never lost more than three games in any of them. It was controlled, measured, and quietly dominant.

On the adjacent courts, Ternstroem matched that standard. The only newcomer on the roster played like she’d been in the lineup for years. She handled Marquette’s Emmerson White 6-2, 6-3, then dug in against Purdue’s Nehir Dogan. After edging a tight first set 7-5, she raced through the second 6-1, turning a tense contest into a statement win.

Two players, four singles wins, not a set dropped between them. On a busy draw sheet, their names stood out.

“We made some good adjustments from yesterday,” Colorado head coach Anthony Pham said. “We took a step forward today, and we want everybody to finish the tournament on a positive note tomorrow.”

Alexin and Bubalo push a top-15 pair to the brink

If Crncan and Ternstroem brought the clean numbers, Lera Alexin and Ema Bubalo brought the drama.

Their day opened with a tidy 6-3 doubles win over Purdue’s Ece Gencer and Dogan, a solid, composed performance that set them up for a far bigger test. Waiting in the next round: North Carolina’s Alanis Hamilton and Anna Frey, the No. 14 doubles team in the country.

What followed was a knife-edge battle.

Alexin and Bubalo went toe-to-toe with the Tar Heels, dragging the match into a tiebreak and then deep into overtime. Match points came and went on both sides. Colorado had chances. North Carolina had to fend them off. In the end, the ranked pair escaped 7-6 (10), but not before the Buffs had announced they belong on that stage.

“They fought off several match points,” Pham said. “That was a highly ranked team. We had match points and fought off several match points. They showed good level and good poise, just unfortunately fell a little short.”

The near-upset seemed to sharpen Alexin’s edge in singles. After a tight opening loss to USF’s Falster – 7-6 (3), 6-4 in a match decided by a few key points – she came back with authority, dismantling Marquette’s Elise Barnstedt 6-2, 6-2. Her response underlined what Pham had talked about: adjustments, resilience, and a step forward.

Bubalo’s singles path was more bruising. Up against Kansas State’s Sabrina Balderrama, she traded sets 6-3, 4-6 before the match spilled into a deciding tiebreak set. Balderrama edged it 1-0, but the back-and-forth underscored the Croatian’s willingness to stay in the fight, point after point, on a long day.

One more push in Milwaukee

By the close of play, Colorado had banked a stack of positives: a doubles sweep to start the morning, a scare for a top-15 national pair, and an unbeaten singles slate from Crncan and Ternstroem that gave the program a glimpse of its ceiling.

Sunday brings the final day of the Milwaukee Tennis Classic and, as Pham put it, a lighter schedule but no drop in expectations.

Bubalo and Alexin will team up for one more doubles match. Crncan and Ternstroem will return to singles, looking to finish off near-perfect weekends and carry this momentum into the heart of the fall season.

If Saturday was any indication, the Buffs are no longer just making up the numbers in Milwaukee. They’re starting to shape the draw.