Rice University
William & Mary
Doubles Win Sparks Owls
4/1/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
WILLIAMSBURG, VA-Lindsey Hodge and Wendy Zhang battled back from a late doubles deficit to win in a tiebreaker and spark the 47th ranked Rice women's tennis team to a 6-1 win over No. 49 William & Mary at the Millie West Tennis Facility on Saturday.
After opening the season by winning the doubles point in the first 10 matches, the Owls found themselves in jeopardy of dropping the initial point for the fourth time in the last five as the Tribe fought off three match points to break and tie the match, 5-5. But after William and Mary held to take a 6-5 lead, Zhang held her serve to force a tiebreaker, which the Owls won 7-4 to take a 1-0 lead.
The Owls carried that momentum over into singles, winning five of six first sets on their way to straight set wins on each court.
"Today was a solid effort by our team. It was nice to fight out that doubles point," Rice head coach Elizabeth Schmidt said. "Then we got off to a really strong start in singles and stepped up at key moments to finish it off."
The Owls will look to close out an unbeaten weekend in Virginia when they take on VCU at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Rice vs William & Mary
4/1/2017 at Williamsburg, VA
(Millie West Tennis Facility)
#47 Rice 6, #49 William & Mary 1
Singles competition
1. #98 Lindsey Hodge (RICE) def. Ekaterina Stepanova (WM) 6-3, 2-6, 1-0 (12-10)
2. #101 Katherine Ip (RICE) def. Marie Faure (WM) 6-0, 6-4
3. Wendy Zhang (RICE) def. Natalie Perry (WM) 6-1, 6-3
4. Rosie Cheng (WM) def. Fernanda Astete (RICE) 6-1, 6-2
5. Savannah Durkin (RICE) def. Lauren Goodman (WM) 6-1, 6-4
6. Alison Ho (RICE) def. Olivia Thaler (WM) 6-1, 6-4
Doubles competition
1. #70 Lindsey Hodge/Wendy Zhang (RICE) def. Marie Faure/Lauren Goodman (WM) 7-6 (7-4)
2. Ekaterina Stepanova/Olivia Thaler (WM) def. #79 Alison Ho/Priya Niezgoda (RICE) 6-2
3. Katherine Ip/Savannah Durkin (RICE) def. Natalie Perry/Cecily Wuenscher (WM) 6-2
Match Notes:
Rice 11-5; National ranking #47
William & Mary 9-10; National ranking #49
Order of finish: Doubles (2,3,1); Singles (6,4,3,2,5)
Players Mentioned
