Lexington, Ky. \u2013 No. 7 Texas Women’s Tennis defeated No. 71 Kentucky, 4-2, on Friday at the Boone Tennis Complex in Lexington, Ky. It was the seventh-straight win for the Longhorns, all coming in SEC play.<\/p>\n
After falling in the first doubles match to finish at No. 2, Texas rallied for a win at No. 3 and a tiebreaker victory at No. 1 to claim the point. The Longhorns followed with singles wins by freshmen Elizabeth Ionescu<\/a> at No. 4 and No. 12 Anastasia Abbagnato<\/a> at No. 2 for a 3-0 lead. Kentucky picked up wins at No. 1 and then No. 6 right before freshman Mathilde Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 could clinch at No. 5. Sophomore No. 71 Eszter Meri<\/a> was also one game away from a possible win at No. 3 when play stopped.<\/p>\n During doubles, Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 and sophomore Carmen Herea<\/a> paired at No. 2, and although they took an early lead, Marina Fuduric and Zoe Hammond came back for a 7-5 win. Texas answered with a 6-4 at No. 3 by Ionescu and Meri over Julia Zhu and Donna Le Roux. That turned the attention to No. 1 where the No. 53 duo of Abbagnato and sophomore Salma Drugdova<\/a> rallied from their own early deficit for a 7-6 (5) tiebreaker victory over Reese Sager and Asuncion Jadue to clinch the point.<\/p>\n Ionescu was then first off the singles court, using a 9-0 run during the match to complete a string of winning 12 of the last 13 games in the match for a 6-3, 6-1 win over Elena Molla at No. 4. Abbagnato then extended the overall lead to 3-0 with a 6-0, 7-5 win over Zhu at No. 2. A short time later, the Wildcats got on the board as No. 1 Herea fell to Hammond, 6-3, 6-3, at No. 1.<\/p>\n That left three matches going, and although Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 had match points at No. 5 that would have made her the first to finish, the match at No. 6 ended being next where Drugdova came up short in three sets to Le Roux, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2. However, three games later, Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 got across the line with a 7-6 (5), 7-5 win over Jadue to clinch the Texas victory.<\/p>\n Meri was then one game away from a potential win when play halted, leading Sager, 6-0, 4-6, 5-4, at No. 3, but the match went unfinished.<\/p>\n The Longhorns will next return home to face No. 18 Tennessee at the Texas Tennis Center on Sunday, March 22, at 12 p.m. CT.<\/p>\n #7 Texas 4, #71 Kentucky 2<\/p>\n Singles \u2013 Order of Finish (4,2,1,6,5) Doubles \u2013 Order of Finish (2,3,1) Individual Match Key Moments Doubles No. 2: Fuduric\/Hammond (UK) def. Herea\/Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 (TEX) 7-5 Doubles No. 3: Ionescu\/Meri (TEX) def. Zhu\/Le Roux (UK) 6-4 Doubles No. 1: Abbagnato\/Drugdova (TEX) def. Sager\/Jadue (UK) 7-6 (5) Singles No. 4: Ionescu (TEX) def. Molla (UK) 6-3, 6-1 Singles No. 2: Abbagnato (TEX) def. Zhu (UK) 6-0, 7-5\u00a0 Singles No. 1: Hammond (UK) def. Herea (TEX) 6-3, 6-3 Singles No. 6: Le Roux (UK) def. Drugdova (TEX) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 Singles No. 5: Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 (TEX) def. Jadue (UK) 7-6 (5), 7-5\u00a0 Singles No. 3: Sager (UK) vs. Meri (TEX) 0-6, 6-4, 4-5, unf.
\n1. Zoe Hammond (UK) def. #1 Carmen Herea<\/a> (TEX) 6-3, 6-3
\n2. #12 Anastasia Abbagnato<\/a> (TEX) def. Julia Zhu (UK) 6-0, 7-5
\n3. Reese Sager (UK) vs. #71 Eszter Meri<\/a> (TEX) 0-6, 6-4, 4-5, unf.
\n4. Elizabeth Ionescu<\/a> (TEX) def. Elena Molla (UK) 6-3, 6-1
\n5. Mathilde Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 (TEX) def. Asuncion Jadue (UK) 7-6 (5), 7-5
\n6. Donna Le Roux (UK) def. Salma Drugdova<\/a> (TEX) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2<\/p>\n
\n1. #53 Anastasia Abbagnato<\/a>\/Salma Drugdova<\/a> (TEX) def. Reese Sager\/Asuncion Jadue (UK) 7-6 (5)
\n2. Marina Fuduric\/Zoe Hammond (UK) def. Carmen Herea<\/a>\/Mathilde Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 (TEX) 7-5
\n3. Elizabeth Ionescu<\/a>\/Eszter Meri<\/a> (TEX) def. Julia Zhu\/Donna Le Roux (UK) 6-4<\/p>\n
\n(by order of finish)<\/p>\n
\nMatch:\u00a0Texas took leads of 4-1 and 5-2, but Kentucky closed on a 5-0 run with one deuce point.<\/p>\n
\nMatch:\u00a0Texas held at deuce and broke for 2-0, which was the first of four-straight breaks until Kentucky held for 3-3. The Longhorns later broke again for 6-4 and the match.<\/p>\n
\nMatch:\u00a0Kentucky got out to a 5-1 lead, but Texas went on a 6-0 run, including deflecting a match point at deuce for 5-5.
\nTiebreaker:\u00a0Similar to the set, the Wildcats moved out to a 5-2 lead, but the Longhorns closed on a 5-0 run for the win and the clinch.<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Molla took a 3-0 lead, but Ionescu set out on a 9-0 total run with the first six for the set.
\nSet Two:\u00a0Ionescu won the first three and the last three games to complete 12 of the last 13.<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Abbagnato swept the first set.
\nSet Two:\u00a0The twice players exchanged breaks, first for 2-0 for Zhu and 2-1, and then 4-2 for Zhu and 4-3. They did it again for 5-4 for Abbagnato and 5-5, but this time Abbagnato broke again and served out the match.<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Hammond broke in the opening game and again for 4-1, and although Herea got back within 4-3, Hammond held on a deuce point for 5-3 and then broke for the set.\u00a0
\nSet Two:\u00a0Hammond broke in the second game as part of a 3-0 run to start. Herea go the break back for 3-2, but Hammond broke and held for 5-2 and held on a deuce point in the last game for 6-3.<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Le Roux opened on a 4-0 run, and although Drugdova made it 4-2, Le Roux broke and held for the set.\u00a0
\nSet Two:\u00a0After three holds and three breaks gave Drugdova a 4-2 lead, she held and broke again for the set.
\nSet Three:\u00a0The third set repeated the scoring pattern from the first set.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 got out to leads of 4-1 and 5-2, but Jadue evened it, 5-5, on the way to a tiebreaker.
\nSet One Tiebreaker:\u00a0Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 took a 3-0 lead, and although Jadue gradually came back until pulling even, 5-5, Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 claimed the last two points to win.
\nSet Two:\u00a0The first four games were breaks until Jadue held for 3-2 and Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 held for 3-3. The players then combined for five-straight breaks with three of those coming at deuce from 4-4 to 5-5, until Ngijol-Carr\u00e9 held for 7-5 and the match.<\/p>\n
\nSet One:\u00a0Meri swept the first set, 6-0.
\nSet Two:\u00a0Sager took a 4-1 lead, but Meri evened it, 4-4, and had a deuce point for the lead, but Sager broke on it and held for the set.
\nSet Three:\u00a0Sager broke and held for 2-0, but Meri got the break back on a deuce point for 3-3. Sager broke again for 4-3, however Meri broke back and held to be one game from a win when play stopped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lexington, Ky. \u2013 No. 7 Texas Women’s Tennis defeated No. 71 Kentucky, 4-2, on Friday at the Boone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-553608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}