SAN ANTONIO – The Tarleton-UTSA match was set up to be a good one on Friday, and both teams did not disappoint.
The Texans came out the victors in San Antonio over the Roadrunners 4-3, their third straight win, and second straight 4-3 victory, to improve to 3-2 on the season. Conference USA's UTSA had their four-match winning streak snapped, losing to Tarleton in their home opener at UTSA Tennis Center.
With nearly every player across both programs entering the day with solid individual records, plus the reigning conference player of the week facing another conference player of the week, the match had quite the hype upon first serve.
Tarleton started with the doubles point, earning a win at Court 3 first by
Emma Persson and
Celia Vaudiau, who defeated Alexandra Weir and Adeliya Mukhutdinova 6-1.
Martha Makantasi and
Elsa Boisson then clinched the doubles point with a 6-3 win at No. 1 over Aleksandra Zlatarova and Fatima Gutierrez. The match at No. 2 went unfinished between Tarleton's
Ximena Morales-
Clara Sobius and UTSA's Magda Tuells-Stanislava Bobrovnikova, with the Texans leading 4-3.
In singles, Morales made it 2-0 Tarleton in the team score by blanking her opponent on Court 6, Eva Beyebach, 6-0 6-0. It was the first time UTSA has played somebody at the No. 6 singles position this season, forfeiting the individual round in their previous six matches. Morales improved to 2-2 in singles on the year, 1-0 at No. 6.
The next result was at Court 1 between the reigning Conference USA Player of the Week Zlatarova and the two-time reigning WAC Singles Player of the Week Makantasi. Zlatarova took this round 6-0 6-3, improving to 5-1 on the year and dropping Makantasi to 2-2.
The Roadrunners then evened the team score at 2-2 with a win at Court 5. Tuells beat Sobius 6-2 6-3.
Vaudiau started a new winning streak to give the Texans back the lead in the No. 4 position, knocking off Gutierrez 6-3 6-4. The Texan senior is now 2-1 in singles on the year, and has won 22 of her last 23 matches, dating back to last season.
Persson clinched the team win at Court 2 with a gritty comeback. After not winning a game in the first set against Weir, Persson fought back to take the match overall, winning 0-6 6-4 7-6(2). Persson owns the best record on the team now this year at 3-1.
Boisson dropped her No. 3 position match to Mukhutdinova, who beat the Texan 4-6 6-4 6-4 to end the day.
The Texans will stay in the area to battle the Texas State Bobcats on Saturday at 1 p.m. CT in San Marcos, Texas.
