Sunday, February 24
Houston, Texas
11:00 am
Rice University
1
vs
6
#9 Texas
Priya Niezgoda and Anastasia Smirnova improved to 8-1 with their win in doubles.
Texas Storms Back to Down Owls
2/24/2019 3:26:00 PM | Women's Tennis
Owls drop first home match of the season
The Lead: Texas shook off the loss of the doubles point to hand Rice its first home loss of the season, taking a 6-1 decision at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Sunday afternoon.
Doubles: Linda Huang and Michaela Haet broke open a tight battle for the doubles point by not allowing a point over their last two games to post a 7-5 win and give Rice a 1-0 lead. Texas had rallied from a 4-2 deficit to take a 5-4 lead before Huang and Haet stormed back, with Huang delivering a pair of aces to close out the match. Priya Niezgoda and Anastasia Smirnova, currently ranked 49th in the nation, improved to 8-1 on the season by providing the Owls other doubles win.
Singles: Texas (5-2 and ranked 7th and 9th in the latest national polls) stormed out of the gates in singles, winning all six first sets then grabbing three matches in straight sets to take a 3-1 lead. Rice (6-4 and ranked 45th) rebounded to force third sets on three courts, but could not duplicate that success in the final sets.
Elizabeth Schmidt: "We played a really solid doubles point and Texas came out really on fire in singles. That shows the maturity of their team and their belief in themselves. They were down 1-0 and didn't miss a beat. That's a place where our team needs to get. When we're in a hole and struggling, we need to have that belief in ourselves at that moment that we can find our way out of it. Texas gave us a good example of that today. Texas played the deuce points better. They have that edge, that mental maturity. It was a good learning experience for our team. We can learn a lot from this match. We know what we need to improve on and we've made steps. We saw it in doubles and we saw it in spurts in singles, now we have to consistently show that when we get knocked down, we are going to get back up and be even tougher. Priya winning her second set after a really tough loss in the first (when she lead 5-0) showed a lot of the type of toughness we're talking about. We have to have that mindset throughout the course of the whole team match. We're going to continue to make even greater steps. "
Up Next: Rice will host 40th ranked Denver at 1 p.m. Friday at the GRBTC.
Doubles: Linda Huang and Michaela Haet broke open a tight battle for the doubles point by not allowing a point over their last two games to post a 7-5 win and give Rice a 1-0 lead. Texas had rallied from a 4-2 deficit to take a 5-4 lead before Huang and Haet stormed back, with Huang delivering a pair of aces to close out the match. Priya Niezgoda and Anastasia Smirnova, currently ranked 49th in the nation, improved to 8-1 on the season by providing the Owls other doubles win.
Singles: Texas (5-2 and ranked 7th and 9th in the latest national polls) stormed out of the gates in singles, winning all six first sets then grabbing three matches in straight sets to take a 3-1 lead. Rice (6-4 and ranked 45th) rebounded to force third sets on three courts, but could not duplicate that success in the final sets.
Elizabeth Schmidt: "We played a really solid doubles point and Texas came out really on fire in singles. That shows the maturity of their team and their belief in themselves. They were down 1-0 and didn't miss a beat. That's a place where our team needs to get. When we're in a hole and struggling, we need to have that belief in ourselves at that moment that we can find our way out of it. Texas gave us a good example of that today. Texas played the deuce points better. They have that edge, that mental maturity. It was a good learning experience for our team. We can learn a lot from this match. We know what we need to improve on and we've made steps. We saw it in doubles and we saw it in spurts in singles, now we have to consistently show that when we get knocked down, we are going to get back up and be even tougher. Priya winning her second set after a really tough loss in the first (when she lead 5-0) showed a lot of the type of toughness we're talking about. We have to have that mindset throughout the course of the whole team match. We're going to continue to make even greater steps. "
Up Next: Rice will host 40th ranked Denver at 1 p.m. Friday at the GRBTC.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2,1
#1 Singles Match
12
Bianca Turati / 0 (113/-) [UT]
66
03
#2 Singles Match
12
Anna Turati / 0 (41/-) [UT]
66
23
#3 Singles Match
123
Bojana Markovic / 0 (100/-) [UT]
656
472
#4 Singles Match
12
Fernanda Labrana / 0 [UT]
66
22
#5 Singles Match
123
Katie Poluta / 0 (94/-) [UT]
737
565
#6 Singles Match
123
Tijana Spasojevic / 0 (91/-) [UT]
636
063
Order of Finish:
4,1,2,6,3
Players Mentioned
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
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