Wednesday, February 6
Houston, Texas
1:00 pm
Rice University
6
vs
0
TCU
Owls Bounce Back with Shutout of TCU
2/6/2019 5:19:00 PM | Women's Tennis
The Lead: The Rice women's tennis team bounced back from a shutout loss to nationally ranked LSU on Sunday, blanking TCU 6-0 on Wednesday afternoon at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
Doubles: The Owls jumped out quickly, breaking the Horned Frogs on their opening service game on all three courts. Victoria Smirnova and Anna Bowtell, who moved into the national rankings for the first time in a tie for 51st, carried their momentum through their match to improve to 4-1 with a 6-2 on court three. TCU struck back for a win on court two, but Michaela Haet and Linda Huang grabbed the first point of the day by winning a tiebreaker on court one.
Singles: The Owls carried their momentum into singles, winning five of six first sets, capped by Priya Niezgoda's tiebreak win on court six. Victoria and Anastasia Smirnova raced to straight set wins playing next to each other on courts two and three to extend the lead to 3-0 and Haet delivered the clincher when her opponent retired because of an injury with Haet up a set and leading 4-2 in the second. Bowtell battled back from the Owls only first set loss to win her second and keep TCU off the board before her match was abandoned. Linda Haung ground out a 6-4, 6-4 win at five and Niezgoda closed the day by winning a superset tiebreaker.
Notable: Rice improved to 13-27 in the all-time series with TCU, winning for the first time since 2013.
Elizabeth Schmidt: "You learn your most from your losses in how you respond to them and I was really pleased the way they came back to practice on Monday and Tuesday with an attitude that we wanted to be better than we were on Sunday in some areas. We talked about using today as an opportunity to work on those things and I thought out team did a really nice job. The conditions were tough, but we were gritty and tough and played solid tennis with a really good attitude and took it to them. If there were little ebbs in our momentum on a court, the rest of the team was able to squash those lulls and get us back on track. It was a total team effort where everyone was picking each other up. The momentum on your court can carry over to the others. Our team did a nice job of staying with the task at hand and staying committed and confident and playing the games they are capable of."
Up Next: The Rice women will host Kansas State at 11 a.m. on Sunday in the second combined dual match with the Rice men, who will host Elon.
Doubles: The Owls jumped out quickly, breaking the Horned Frogs on their opening service game on all three courts. Victoria Smirnova and Anna Bowtell, who moved into the national rankings for the first time in a tie for 51st, carried their momentum through their match to improve to 4-1 with a 6-2 on court three. TCU struck back for a win on court two, but Michaela Haet and Linda Huang grabbed the first point of the day by winning a tiebreaker on court one.
Singles: The Owls carried their momentum into singles, winning five of six first sets, capped by Priya Niezgoda's tiebreak win on court six. Victoria and Anastasia Smirnova raced to straight set wins playing next to each other on courts two and three to extend the lead to 3-0 and Haet delivered the clincher when her opponent retired because of an injury with Haet up a set and leading 4-2 in the second. Bowtell battled back from the Owls only first set loss to win her second and keep TCU off the board before her match was abandoned. Linda Haung ground out a 6-4, 6-4 win at five and Niezgoda closed the day by winning a superset tiebreaker.
Notable: Rice improved to 13-27 in the all-time series with TCU, winning for the first time since 2013.
Elizabeth Schmidt: "You learn your most from your losses in how you respond to them and I was really pleased the way they came back to practice on Monday and Tuesday with an attitude that we wanted to be better than we were on Sunday in some areas. We talked about using today as an opportunity to work on those things and I thought out team did a really nice job. The conditions were tough, but we were gritty and tough and played solid tennis with a really good attitude and took it to them. If there were little ebbs in our momentum on a court, the rest of the team was able to squash those lulls and get us back on track. It was a total team effort where everyone was picking each other up. The momentum on your court can carry over to the others. Our team did a nice job of staying with the task at hand and staying committed and confident and playing the games they are capable of."
Up Next: The Rice women will host Kansas State at 11 a.m. on Sunday in the second combined dual match with the Rice men, who will host Elon.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2,1
#1 Singles Match
123
Ellie Douglas / 0 (90/-) [TCU]
520
74WR
#2 Singles Match
12
Aleksa Cveticanin / 0 [TCU]
40
66
#3 Singles Match
12
Mercedes Aristegui / 0 [TCU]
23
66
#4 Singles Match
12
Kate Paulus / 0 [TCU]
63
36
#5 Singles Match
12
Stevie Kennedy / 0 [TCU]
44
66
#6 Singles Match
123
Chloe Hule / 0 [TCU]
660
741
Order of Finish:
2,3,1,4,5,6
Players Mentioned
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
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