Women’s tennis preps for tough Sunday contest with Longhorns
When following college athletics, it is easy to forget that the athletes are, in fact, students just like everyone else on campus. Last Friday, senior Dominique Karas, a regular at the top of the lineup for the women’s tennis team, was out for Rice’s match against Mississippi State University because of a medical school interview. Nevertheless, the rest of the team picked up the slack, pushing the Bulldogs to the limit before falling 4-3. Two days later Rice rebounded by staving off the University of Alabama by a 4-3 margin.
Now the Owls return to Jake Hess Tennis Stadium for what will be a busy weekend. Today at 3 p.m., Rice plays the University of Texas-Arlington, and tomorrow, the team will face Northwestern State University at 3 p.m. But those two matches are just a prelude for the real test, a showdown with No. 25 University of Texas Sunday at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. The Longhorns will be a formidable opponent, especially in doubles, where they sport the 25th-ranked duo of Marija Milic and Vanja Corovic.
The Longhorns may be one of the few ranked teams Rice faces all season, but that may not be a bad thing for the Owls, who struggled in their match with Mississippi State from the outset. Although sophomore Julie Chao and senior Tiffany Lee paired for a win at No. 1 in doubles, the Owls could not hold on for another win. After the Bulldogs evened the doubles score at 1-1, Radka Ferancova and Renee Joseph downed sophomore Rebecca Lin and freshman Varsha Shiva-Shankar 8-5 to clinch the doubles point.
The Owls rebounded in singles, however, as senior Christine Dao earned her first singles victory of the spring with a 6-4, 6-1 thrashing of Elna de Villiers at No. 4. Rice then took the lead when junior Emily Braid overpowered Daniela Juskova 6-4, 6-4, although MSU quickly tied the match at 2 with a win at No. 2. The momentum remained in flux as Shiva-Shankar won in straight sets to give Rice the lead, but then Ferancova proved to be too much for Lin in yet another straight-set matchup.
All eyes then turned to center court, where sophomore Julie Chao, ranked 99th in the country, was battling Martina Banikova at the top of the ladder. After dropping a tiebreaker in the opening set, Chao could not find the comeback path and lost 7-6 (4), 6-3. With this last key point sliding the wrong way, Rice lost the dual match to MSU by a narrow margin.
Fortunately for the Owls, Karas was back in the lineup Sunday when they faced the Crimson Tide. After Shiva-Shankar and Braid muscled out an easy doubles win, Chao and Karas combined to take a close 8-6 victory to give the Owls the doubles point.
But despite their early momentum, Rice once again faced a tight battle in singles. Lee fell to Alabama’s Alice Tunaru 6-0, 6-4, but Shiva-Shankar regained the lead for Rice with in a 6-2, 6-3 win over Andrea Brenes. However, the lead changed hands again when Karas lost in three sets and Lin subsequently fell in two to give the Crimson Tide a 3-2 advantage.
In a tiebreaker, Braid lost the first set of her match with Bianca Svensson but managed to hang on to win the second. With the momentum on her side, Braid put the nails in Svensson’s coffin by taking the third set to win 6-7, 6-4, 6-3, and once again put the final decision in Chao’s hands.
“[Svensson] was playing her best,” Braid said. “Their whole team was playing well. She really gave me nothing. It was exciting to finish my match and watch Julie complete the win.”
Chao did not start off strong enough in the first set against Tiffany Welcher, losing 4-6, but she evened things up by taking the second-set tiebreaker. Chao then pulled ahead in the third set, but a questionable line call at 40-love, shifted momentum, and Welcher came back to force a tiebreaker. Once again Chao dug deep, dominating the tiebreaker 7-1 to clinch a 4-3 win for the Owls.
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