MIAMI — The Mean Green tennis team takes its hot streak to South Florida for a pair of conference matches starting Saturday at 1:30 p.m. CT versus Marshall. 

North Texas, who has won five of its last six and is undefeated this year against Conference USA opponents, will be playing its first matches away from home in four weeks and will be the first out of the state of Texas in 40 days. 

"We are looking forward to this trip and to keep building on the momentum," said head coach Sujay Lama. "Every match is an opportunity to improve and road matches are a little more challenging."

North Texas (7-4), who after facing Marshall (2-7) on Saturday will face Florida International (3-4) at 11 a.m. CT on Sunday, just completed a six-match home stand that saw them go 5-1 and beat schools such as Arizona and conference foes Western Kentucky and UTEP. The lone match they didn't win came at the hands of Kansas State and was a narrow 4-3 loss. 

The current hot streak the Mean Green are on has been fueled by a lot of factors but it starts with its doubles play. UNT has won the doubles point in six straight matches. However, this weekend will be a good test for the Mean Green's doubles lineup as they have yet to win the doubles point in their three matches away from home. 

Leading the doubles charge has been the play of one of the program's most successful doubles team ever in Maria Kononova and Tamuna Kutubidze. Since being repaired together five matches ago, the seniors are 5-0 in doubles at the No. 1 spot in the lineup and have won all their matches convincingly. In their five matches played together, the nation's No. 26 ranked doubles team's closest match has been 6-1. They've won their five matches by a combined score of 30-2. 

Another factor to the Mean Green's success has been the play of Kononova and Kutubidze in singles.

Kutubidze has been solid all season and at 8-1 owns the best record on the team and has the most singles wins. She has won four straight completed singles matches.

After a sluggish start, Kononova, who is the program's winningest singles and soon to be doubles player of all-time has won six straight singles matches. The senior clinched her team's most recent match last Friday over Northwestern State, which they won 4-0.

But it hasn't just been Kononova and Kutubidze.

The play of rest of the team has elevated the program noticeably. Juniors Ivana Babic and Alexandra Heczey each have six singles wins, which for Babic is three more than she had in her first two seasons in Denton combined.

The duo, which also pairs up in doubles is 5-3 this season in doubles and has clinched multiple doubles point for the Mean Green. 

As Lama referenced, the momentum has been building for the Mean Green.

On Saturday when they take the court against Marshall on a neutral site, North Texas will be riding a two-match winning streak, which they shutout both Arizona and Northwestern State. In fact, they have outscored its last six opponents by a combined score of 28-5. Of UNT's last five wins, four were shutouts. 
But this weekend will be no breeze for the Mean Green.

"Marshall has the most experienced coach in our conference who always has his team ready to battle," Lama said referring to the Thundering Herd's head coach John Mercer who has been a coach for 32 seasons and for 17 years at Marshall. "FIU is the defending champion and have a young but a talented team. Both matches should test and bring the best out of us."