Colorado Dominates at Milwaukee Classic with Crncan and Ternstroem
GLENDALE, Wis. – On a long, restless Saturday at the 50th Annual Milwaukee Classic, Colorado didn’t just survive the grind. It owned it.
At the center of it all were Heidi Crncan and freshman newcomer Louise Ternstroem, who turned the Nicolet Tennis Center into their own workshop, piecing together a perfect day in singles and a statement win in doubles.
By nightfall, both had gone 2-0 in singles and teamed up for a dominant doubles victory. For a program trying to build depth and identity early in the season, this was the kind of day that sharpens edges.
Crncan and Ternstroem set the tone
Colorado’s day started early, and it started fast.
The Buffs swept their opening doubles session at 8 a.m., immediately grabbing control of the mood. Crncan and Ternstroem blitzed USF’s Sienna Leeson and Josefine Falster 6-1, a ruthless performance that barely gave the Bulls room to breathe. One loose game, that was it. The rest was one-way traffic.
On the adjacent court, Lera Alexin and Ema Bubalo were just as sharp, rolling past Purdue’s Ece Gencer and Nehir Dogan 6-3. Colorado had its sweep, its spark, and its confidence.
Head coach Anthony Pham saw something different from the previous day.
“We made some good adjustments from yesterday,” Pham said. “We took a step forward today, and we want everybody to finish the tournament on a positive note tomorrow.”
The step forward was obvious. The next test came quickly.
Alexin and Bubalo walked straight into one of the toughest assignments of the tournament: North Carolina’s No. 14-ranked doubles team, Alanis Hamilton and Anna Frey. The match turned into a knife-edge battle, decided by inches and nerves. Colorado had match points. North Carolina had match points. The Tar Heels finally escaped 7-6 (10), but not before Alexin and Bubalo forced them to show all of that ranking.
“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.”
Crncan and Ternstroem couldn’t quite match their first doubles outing in their second match, falling 6-1 to LIP’s Deborah Collado Dominguez and Mariia Dolzhenko. The loss, though, didn’t bleed into singles. If anything, it sharpened their response.
Singles dominance from the top
Crncan, a second-year from England, walked onto the singles court and put on a clinic.
She opened with a 6-1, 6-2 dismantling of Milwaukee’s Karolina Skowronska, stepping inside the baseline and dictating rallies with authority. No drama. No let-up. Just clean, efficient tennis.
Then she backed it up.
Against LIP’s Deborah Collado Dominguez, Crncan stayed locked in, closing out another straight-sets win, 6-2, 6-3. Across four sets of singles, she never lost more than three games in a set. That’s not just winning; that’s control.
Ternstroem matched the standard.
The freshman first took out Marquette’s Emmerson White 6-2, 6-3, moving with the composure of a veteran. Later, against Purdue’s Dogan, she had to dig deeper. The first set turned into a tight 7-5 scrap, but once she had it, the match flipped. Ternstroem stormed through the second set 6-1, closing the day with two singles wins and a growing sense that Colorado has found something serious in its newest addition.
Alexin and Bubalo fight through the margins
Not every match went Colorado’s way, but even the losses came with resistance.
Alexin’s day started in a grind against USF’s Falster. She pushed the first set to a tiebreak before dropping it 7-6 (3), then fell 6-4 in the second. The margins were thin, the points long. She didn’t dwell on it.
Her response was emphatic: a 6-2, 6-2 win over Marquette’s Elise Barnstedt, a performance that looked like a reset and a reminder of her level.
Bubalo’s singles match turned into one of the most physical battles of the day. Facing Kansas State’s Sabrina Balderrama, she traded sets, dropping the first 6-3, then clawing back 6-4 to force a deciding tiebreak set. The final frame slipped away 1-0, but the alternating sets told the story of a match that never really settled.
Across the lineup, the pattern was clear: Colorado wasn’t backing off any court, any opponent, any moment.
One more push in Milwaukee
Sunday brings the final day of the Milwaukee Tennis Classic and, as Pham suggested, a lighter schedule but not a lighter standard.
Bubalo and Alexin will return to doubles for one more match, another chance to build on a day where they went toe-to-toe with a top-15 pair in the country. Crncan and Ternstroem will close out their campaigns in singles, stepping into final draws with momentum and a full day of winning tennis behind them.
Colorado arrived in Milwaukee looking for answers early in the season. After Saturday’s surge, the more pressing question is different:
How far can this group push from here?
