(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)
Tempe—On Friday, April 5th, the Arizona State Sun Devils Women’s Tennis team (10-8, 2-4 Pac-12) collected their first win since March 22nd, defeating Washington State Cougars Women’s Tennis (10-6,1-5 Pac-12) by a score of 4-2.
Senior Giulia Morlet finally returned to the court for his first full day of tennis since March 1st against Baylor. She played a doubles match on March 22nd in the Sun Devils win over Oregon.
“Honestly, I am very happy to be back,” Morlet said. “At the beginning of the match, it was weird because I lost the rhythm a little bit, but I’m super grateful to be back and play in front of my little crowd.”
Without Morlet, the Sun Devils had to go on their toughest stretch of the season, leaving Tempe for multiple weeks to to on the road and face multiple tough opponents. Now with Morlet mack and the Sun Devils back at home, they will look to bounce back and finish out the season.
“For us, it was good to have a couple of weeks off because we went through a tough stretch,” head coach Sheila McInerney said. “We were at Baylor, Stanford, Cal, NAU here, we were at USC and UCLA, and at Oregon, so we had a two-week stretch where we were traveling, and it was pretty tough. It was nice that we had good practices and were physically ready to play today.”
The Sun Devils took the double point, with Morlet and freshman Sara Svetac defeating Yura Nakagawa and Fifa Kumhom, 6-1, and senior Marianna Argyrokastriti and freshman Emilija Tverijonaite defeating Hania Abouelsaad and Martina Markov, 6-2. They earned this point quickly, and it looked like the Sun Devils would kick off their weekend with a quick victory over the Cougars.
ASU then struggled in the singles matches, with one of the matches going to a tiebreak game and four going to third sets. McInerney praised the Cougars for playing the Sun Devils tough. She did say that having a player like Morlet back helped in singles because when a top player goes down for a tennis team, the second player moves up, and this makes it challenging for the rest of the team because now everyone has to play a player who is above them on the opposing teams’ roster.
On court six, junior Patricija Spaka quickly dismantled her opponent Martina Markov, 6-3, 6-2, and on court three, freshman Emilija Tverijonaite defeated Yura Nakagawa, 6-3, 6-4. These were the only matches that were decided early.
The Sun Devils struggled to get their final point to win the match. Senior Rachel Hanford had dropped her first set 7-5 to WSU’s Hania Abouelsaad. She then went on to dominate the second set 6-4, forcing a third set. In that third set, Hanford and Abouelsaad kept their serve until the sixth game, when Abouelsaad was able to break Hanford.
From there, Abouelsaad cruised and won 6-2. This earned the Cougars its first-afternoon point, scoring 3-1. Soon after this match finished, freshman Sara Svetac lost to Fifa Kumhorn. Svetac had won her first set 6-3 but then struggled in the next set, losing 6-3 and continued to struggle going down 6-3, and the Cougars earned their second point of the match.
The afternoon came down to the matches being played on the first and second courts. Giulia Morlet was having trouble with Eva Alvarez Sande on the first court, losing the first set in a 6-6 tiebreak that ended 7-3. In the second set, she rallied and won 6-2. On court two, her teammate, sophomore Chelsea Fontenel, was also having trouble early. She lost her first set 7-6, and it looked like she would struggle the rest of the day. However, Fontenel bounced back and caught fire. She dominated the following two sets, winning 6-1, 6-1, and ending the day before Morlet finished her set.
The Sun Devils won the match 4-2 and will play the no. 25 Washington Huskies (14-6, 3-2 Pac-12) tomorrow at 11 AM MST at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe, Arizona.
