SMU W-Tennis Defeats ACU
DALLAS (SMU) – The SMU women’s tennis team won their first match of 2016 over the Abilene Christian 5-2 at the SMU Tennis Complex.
The Mustangs clinched the first team point of the night with two doubles victories. First was by the pair of Dasha Sharapova and Ana Perez-Lopez winning their match over Lucile Pothier and Kaysie Hermsdorf 6-4. Then Vaszilisza Bulgakova and Hristina Dishkova clinched the doubles point with their 6-4 victory over Erin Walker and Whitney Williams. Those two wins came after Macie Elliott and Mary Wright dropped the first doubles match of the night 6-0 to Andrea Crook and Nada Marjanovic.
Wright had a short memory going into singles as she dominated Williams 6-2, 6-0 to get the first singles point of the night to SMU.
“I wasn’t really angry [at the doubles result] because I started singles out kind of nervous,” Wright said. “Then I realized that I lost in doubles and I really wanted to make my match count in singles because they picked us up in doubles so I was determined that I was not going to lose.”
Dishkova was the next to win her singles match in a similarly quick fashion, beating Walker 6-1, 6-1 to put SMU up 3-0. Marjanovic won her match against Perez-Lopez 6-4, 6-2 to put ACU back in the match down 3-1.
This time it was Elliott’s turn to forget her performance in doubles as she won the
match clinching point for SMU, beating Jordan Henry 7-5, 6-4. Elliott credits a short conversation with head coach Kati Gyulai for the turnaround from doubles.
“Right after we got off the court Kati told us to move on, that a 6-0 loss is an anomaly, that it won’t happen again, to remove it from the score board and move on to your next match,” Elliott said. “I felt like it was a great way to redeem ourselves after Mary played so well and then I got the clinching win.”
The rest of the matches resumed play with Dasha Sharapova winning her match against Pothier 7-5, 7-5 and Bulgakova fought hard in a third set, super tiebreak but falling to Hermsdorf 4-6, 6-4, 13-11. SMU’s 5-2 victory is their 9th straight win over ACU, remaining unbeaten in series history.
The Mustangs will take to the courts at the SMU Tennis Complex again this Friday at 5:00 pm CT as they welcome McNeese State.
