DURHAM, N.C. \u2013 The Kentucky women\u2019s tennis team faced off against the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils in the first away match of the season, putting on a tremendous effort against the top-10 team, with the Wildcats ultimately 4-2. Now 2-1, the Wildcats will use this battle as fuel for the rest of the tough competition ahead.<\/p>\n
To start off the match with doubles play, No. 1 pair Julia Zhu and Marina Fuduric for Kentucky leave no room for error, dominating Duke\u2019s An\/Hovde and sweeping the match, 6-0. Then, Kentucky\u2019s No. 3 pair of Zoe Hammond and Ellie Myers follow behind by defeating Duke\u2019s Krug\/Ballus, 6-1 and securing the doubles point for the cats. Asuncion Jadue and Reese Sager\u2019s match went unfinished on court two, as the Wildcats clinched the 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Heading to singles play with the 1-0 lead, Kentucky senior Hammond faced off against No. 23 Irina Ballus, ending the match by falling 6-4, 6-3 and giving Duke its first point of the match. Sager was matched up against No. 93 Kimchi and was defeated 7-5, 6-1.<\/p>\n
Freshman Elena Molla had an exceptional performance facing off against Duke\u2019s Krug, Molla won her singles match on court five 6-3, 6-4 and secured a singles point for Kentucky, leading the team to be tied up with Duke at 2-2.<\/p>\n
Zhu had a tough match up against No. 98 Hovde, losing the first set, but battling back and securing the second set. This ultimately led to a decisive third set where Zhu fell short 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 and the Blue Devils got their first lead of the match 3-2.<\/p>\n
Myers was one of the many courts that had a battle in three sets. The senior faced off against Duke\u2019s Kruq, going game for game and leading to a close match ending with a score of 4-6, 6-0, 6-4. Jadue had an intense race to the best two of three where she faced off against No. 87 Yu. In an intense trade-off in games each set, the two fought tirelessly point after point, but with the Blue Devils securing the last singles point, was unfinished.<\/p>\n
Although a tough loss against No. 7 Duke, the Wildcats must turn around quickly as they play once again in Durham on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n
For the latest on UK Women\u2019s Tennis, follow @UKWomensTennis on Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n
Doubles Results:
1. Fuduric\/Zhu (UK) def. Hovde\/An (DUKE) 6-0
2. Yu\/Kimchi (DUKE) vs. Jadue\/Sager (UK) 4-1, unfinished
3. Hammond\/Myers (UK) def. Balus\/Krug (DUKE) 6-1
Order of finish: 3,1<\/p>\n
Singles Results:
1. No. 23 Balus (DUKE) def. Hammond (UK) 6-4, 6-3
2. No. 98 Hovde (DUKE) def. Zhu (UK) 6-4, 5-7, 6-2
3. Jadue (UK) vs. No. 87 Yu (DUKE) 6-1, 5-7, 4-4, unfinished
4. No. 93 Kimchi (DUKE) def. Sager (UK) 7-5, 6-1
5. Molla (UK) def. Krug (DUKE) 6-3, 6-4
6. Kruq (DUKE) def. Myers (UK) 4-6, 6-0, 6-4
Order of finish: 4, 1, 5, 2, 6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DURHAM, N.C. \u2013 The Kentucky women\u2019s tennis team faced off against the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[42,85,46,139483,105,139484],"class_list":{"0":"post-266681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-non-homepage-featured","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-women-s-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}