ARLINGTON, Texas — Shortly after winning the doubles point, the skies opened and forced the St. Mary's University and No. 25 Angelo State University Women's Tennis teams into a seven-hour rain delay.
 
The teams finally resumed play at 5:30 p.m., and the Rambelles were able to win singles matches three through six for the 4-2 victory, as the tournament is using clinch format.
 
Senior Gia Posito (Houston) and freshman Breeze Simon (Dallas) got things going with a 6-1 win at line two of doubles, but the Rambelles tandem of Danai Amangazhiyeva and Jade Betagno won 6-3 at line three, turning the attention to court one, where senior Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) and junior Selina Wu (San Gabriel, Calif.) upset the No. 13 team in the country 6-3.
 
Angelo State tied the team score at 1-1 with a win on court six, but the Rattlers regained the lead with a big victory on court one. Terlizzi, ranked No. 58 this week in the ITA singles rankings lost only three games in her win over No. 37 Margaux Rene, 6-0, 6-3. Terlizzi lost to Rene in straight sets in the quarterfinals of the ITA South Central Regional in September, but won both meetings this spring in straight sets.
 
Freshman Isabella Olsson (Sverige, Sweden) trailed 4-3 in the second set after losing the first set 6-4, but buckled down to win the final three games and force a third set. She faced a match point but staved it off to win the eighth game and close within a break, 5-3, but Benedetta Raggiotti pulled off the 6-3 win to clinch the first-round win for the Rambelles. 
 
Wu got a late break of serve to win her first set 7-5 over No. 32 Vasilisa Kupriianova, and trailed 4-1 in the second set but fought back to force a tiebreaker, knotting the score up at 6-6. Kupriianova was able to win the tiebreaker 7-1, and the two had just finished the first game of the third set when the match concluded.
 
The Rattlers will now await word to see if they'll receive an at-large berth to the NCAA South Central Regional. St. Mary's is ranked fifth in the South Central Regional rankings that were released on April 29.