SMU W-Tennis Defeats Oklahoma
DALLAS (SMU) – The SMU women’s tennis team defeated the 36th ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the first outdoor match of the season at Turpin Stadium, giving the Mustangs a 6-0 start to the season.
Doubles play started in Oklahoma’s favor as the No. 1 pair of Lily Miyazaki and Simran Sethi handed SMU’s Vaszilisza Bulgakova and Hristina Dishkova their first doubles loss of the season 6-3. SMU’s No. 2 pair of Dasha Sharapova and Ana Perez-Lopez won their match 7-5 and No. 3 pair of Macie Elliott and Mary Wright clinched the doubles point winning a tiebreak 7-4 to win the match 7-6.
“Macie played incredible and kept her level of play up during the entire match,” Wright said. “I think getting the doubles point gave us more confidence going into singles play.”
Singles also started well for Oklahoma as they won the first two matches from lines two and five to take a 2-1 team lead. Wright (No. 6) and Dishkova (No. 1) both lost their first sets and each came back to win their second and third sets to win their matches to give SMU the 3-2 lead in the team match.
Dishkova’s win came against Miyazaki, who entered the match as the 52nd ranked singles player in
the ITA rankings. She now moves to 6-0 on the number one line in singles play and feels that her confidence is growing.
“[Miyazaki] played really well but I just kept playing my game and worked hard to win the second and third sets,” Dishkova said. “It’s definitely great for my confidence and the team’s confidence to win over a ranked individual and a ranked team.”
With the match at 3-2 in SMU’s favor, Sharapova (No. 4) and Yana Erkeeva (No. 3) were locked-in, each moving into the third sets of their matches. Sharapova was the first to finish, clinching her match against Mimi Fotopolous 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 with the entire crowd along with her teammates locked in on her match.
“I don’t really feel much pressure, even when it seems like everyone is watching me,” Sharapova said. “We are all playing for each other and everyone played their hearts out today to get this win.”
