PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. – The Sun Belt Conference women's tennis championship came down to the wire on Sunday afternoon, as the over four-hour match needed a third set tiebreaker in the final singles match to determine the winner. UT Arlington battled back from a doubles point loss, but was unable to take down top-seeded South Alabama, 4-3.
South Alabama jumped out to an early lead over the Mavericks, claiming courts two and three in doubles play to take the doubles point.
Liz Chileno and
Ana Paula Jimenez fell 6-1 on court two before
Sarina Reinertsen and
Carla Pons lost in a back-and-forth battle on court three, 6-4.
The Mavericks battled back in singles competition, as
Ana Paula Jimenez evened the match with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Lara van der Merwe on court six.
After losing her first two matches of the season to begin the SBC Tournament,
Tara Gorinsek bounced back when it mattered most, taking court four in straight sets 6-1, 6-0 over Milka Emilia Pasanen to give the Mavericks a 2-1 advantage in the match.
Sarina Reinertsen put the Mavericks one point away with a court five win over Otoha Aoki.
While the Mavericks took care of courts four through six, the Jaguars evened the match by winning courts one and two in straight sets. Yu Fujioka defeated
Liz Chileno on court one 6-3, 6-3, while Nikola Kohoutova took down
Momoka Horiguchi 6-2, 6-3.
With the match standing at three all and the trophy on the line, it came down to court three between
Carla Pons and Luminita Tutunaru. Pons battled in set one to win 7-5. Trailing 5-3 in the second set, Pons fought back to tie the set at six, but was unable to clinch the match, falling in set two 7-6.
As is the rule of three, with the match tied at three, it came down to the third set on court three to capture the win. Despite taking an early 1-0 lead in the third set, Pons would be unable to capture any more points, falling 1-6 as the Mavericks came just short of capturing the SBC Championship.
The Mavericks end the season with a program record 23 wins in a season, while making its first trip to the SBC Championship since 2015.
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