COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Utah Women’s tennis team closed the first day at the Texas A&M Fall Invitational in College Station, Texas. Utah competed in two doubles rounds and one singles round before finishing play.
“I am excited for the team to get this event going,” stated Head Coach Ric Mortera. “I was excited for us to come out here because of the great opportunity it presented to play some high-quality teams to gauge where we are at. The first day has shown us some very positive things and presented to us some areas for us to certainly improve on. We had some great matches today for our growth and definitely some quality wins. Looking forward to what the rest of the weekend brings.”
In the first round of doubles, all three Utah doubles teams went head-to-head against host team Texas A&M. Anastasia Goncharova and Madison Tattini played against Jacyi Goldsmith/Mary Stoiana and lost 6-2. Freshmen Kaila Barksdale and Marcela Lopez went head-to-head with Gianna Pielet/Jeanette Mireles and were defeated 6-2. Samantha Horwood teamed with Katya Hersh and dropped its doubles match to Daria Smetannikov/Lizanne Boyer, 6-3.
Barksdale and Hersh played together in the second round of doubles against Kayal Gownder/Elise Robbins, also from Texas A&M but were defeated 7-6 (3). Horwood was back on the double’s court later in the day with teammate Lopez. They went up against Allison Zipoli/Diane El Jardi from Rice and lost 6-2. Goncharova and Tattini were able to clinch a doubles win against Rice’s Saara Orav/ Marte Lambrecht, 6-0.
In singles, Horwood clinched her first win of the day against Arkansas player Morgan McCarthy, 6-3, 6-2. Finishing closely behind her, Barksdale defeated her opponent Federica Trevisan from Rice, 6-2, 6-2.
Goncharova played against another Rice player, El Jardin, and lost 6-4, 6-2. Tattini went head-to-head with Orav again in singles and won both sets, 6-3. Hersh battled it out with Darya Schwartzman from Rice. She was defeated in the second set after a tough fight in her first, 7-5, 6-2. Lopez finished the first day of competition with another Utah win against Texas Tech’s Yekaterina Dmitrichenko, 7-5, 7-5.
Women’s tennis will be back on the court tomorrow at the Texas A&M Fall Invitational.
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