Box Score IOWA CITY, Iowa – The No. 13-seed Michigan State women’s tennis team nearly pulled out the victory at multiple points Wednesday afternoon, but could not finish off 12th-seeded Iowa in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament, as the host Hawkeyes defeated the Spartans, 4-3, at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Complex.
A close doubles action led right into six nail-biting singles matches, as two doubles matches went to tiebreaker while four singles courts ended up needing all three sets to decide winners.
The doubles point went down to the wire, as the Spartans nearly closed out the Hawkeyes twice in an attempt to grab a lead, but Iowa fought back in both to take the 1-0 edge. The No. 2 MSU pairing of senior Nicole Stephens and sophomore Ayshe Can was able to win their showdown with Marisa Schmidt and Vipasha Mehra, pulling away for the 6-3 victory, while both the No. 1 and No. 3 Spartan pairings fought back to force tiebreakers after early deficits.
The top pairing of senior Maja Pietrowicz and graduate student Mary Lewis were able to battle from down 3-5 to force the tiebreaker at 6-6, even taking a 5-4 lead in the tiebreaking set before Samantha Mannix and Samantha Gillas escaped with the 7-6 (7-5) win to tie up doubles action.
Coming down to the No. 3 doubles matchup of freshman Charlotte Gisclon and junior Dagmar Zdrubecka against Barbora Pokorna and Michelle Bacalla, the Spartan pairing also erased an early Iowa lead to send the match to a 6-6 tiebreaker, where Gisclon and Zdrubecka were up 5-4. Unfortunately, the Hawkeye duo grabbed the next three tiebreaker points to claim the 7-6 (7-5) victory and hand Iowa the doubles point.
The Spartans responded by taking the first two singles matches to finish, as Stephens and fellow senior Lauren Lemonds helped put MSU ahead, 2-1. Lemonds won three-straight points to take the first set over Gillas after trailing 3-4, and then closed out the No. 5 Hawkeye player in the second set to win via a 6-4, 6-4 score. For Stephens, she also won the final three points of her opening set against Mehra on the No. 4 singles court before winning the second set to secure a 6-4, 6-4 victory as well.
Pokorna got the Hawkeyes a win on the second singles court with a comeback effort after Can took the opening set in convincing fashion. Pokorna battled from…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Michigan State University Athletics…