Tiebreakers Prove Costly in Women's Tennis Close Loss

TYLER, Texas — After three extremely close doubles matches, the St. Mary's University Women's Tennis team split the six singles matches with Southern Arkansas in the 4-3 loss.
 
The Muleriders (6-0) won both the No. 1 and 3 doubles in tiebreaker fashion for the first point of the day. The duo of Paula Garrote (Cartagena, Spain) and Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) won at No. 2, 7-5.
 
"Unfortunately, we didn't establish any rhythm in the doubles and failed to take over the net in the tiebreakers, which cost us the point," said Director of Tennis Bill Macom. "We got off to a really good start in all the singles. However, we had difficulties holding serve after a break of serve on a few courts and Southern Arkansas took advantage of it."
 
Freshman Janel Ospanova (Karaganda, Kazakhstan) won her second-straight match to start her collegiate career, dropping only three games. She won 6-1, 6-2 to knot the team score at 1-1.
 
Fellow freshman Selina Wu (San Gabriel, Calif.) posted a 6-1, 6-4 victory on court one and sophomore Stela Sifuentes (Eagle Pass, Texas) followed with a 6-4, 6-3 win at No. 6 to push the Rattlers (1-2) lead to 3-1.
 
The Muleriders won the final three matches, two of them in three sets, to take the win.
 
St. Mary's remains in Tyler and will face Central Oklahoma on Sunday at 10 a.m.