WICHITA, Kan. – An energetic crowd and high-level play led the Wichita State women's tennis team to an incredible win over the Kentucky Wildcats on Friday evening at Wichita Country Club, 4-2.
Wichita State extends their win streak to three matches with the victory and they are now 4-4 on the season. The loss for Kentucky was just their second of the season, and they sit at 5-2.
"It was a total team effort today," Head Coach
Colin Foster said. "We really appreciated the great crowd today and we played with great energy from start to finish."
In doubles, Kentucky grabbed momentum with a dominant win over
Anne Knuettel and
Sati Aubakirova at court three, 6-0. For the Shockers,
Theodora Chantava and
Kristina Kudryavtseva answered with a 6-2 win at court two, leaving doubles to be decided at court one.
At the top court,
Giorgia Roselli and
Xin Tong Wang fell down 3-0 early, but managed to dig themselves out of the hole, cutting the deficit to just 5-4. The Shockers couldn't finish off the comeback, however, falling 6-4 to give Kentucky the doubles point.
In singles,
Tatyana Nikolenko made remained hot, evening the match score at 1-1 with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 win at court four.
Later, Roselli avenged her doubles loss with a 6-3, 6-4 win at court two to give WSU a 2-1 lead.
Chantava was not so fortunate, as she fell in a three-set bout, 1-6, 6-2, 6-0, evening the match at 2-2.
Much later, Wang pulled off another sensational comeback win at court one, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to give WSU the lead back at 3-2.
"Tatyana and Giorgia getting two points on the board quickly set the stage for the others to keep battling," said Foster. "The other matches had a lot of momentum swings but Xin Tong played a great match to get us to three points."
Needing just one more point for the win, the Shockers looked to Kudryavtseva and Knuettel to finish the job. After winning her first set 6-3, Knuettel leapt out to a 4-0 lead that became a 5-2 advantage, and she appeared to be firmly in control. Her UK opponent would rally, however, tying the match at 5-5 to put the pressure on the Shockers. Concurrently, Kudryavtseva was fighting to keep her match alive, trailing 6-1, 6-5.
Kudryavtseva would battle back, ultimately taking her second set 7-6 (7), while Knuettel headed to a tiebreak to decide her second set. In the tiebreak, with some pressure relieved, the junior dominated, winning the break 7-2 to take her match and clinch a Shocker win. Kudryavtseva's match ended unfinished, 3-6, 7-6 (2), 3-3.
"Kristina extending her match to a third set helped keep the pressure off Anne," said Foster. "It was super tough for Anne to close out with her opponent playing so well, but she did well to get into a tie break and played so well for the clinch."
The next match for WSU is on Friday, February 21 at 10:00 AM where they will host an AAC foe in the Memphis Tigers.
