Mar 31, 2019
COLLEGE STATION – The No. 12 Texas A&M women's tennis team dropped their regular season home finale, 4-2, to Florida (9-8, 6-4) at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center Sunday afternoon. The Aggies (19-4, 6-4) take to the road for the final two weekends of the regular season before hosting the SEC Championship April 17-21 in College Station.
"We always try to find some positives in the match and it is really tough when you lose a really close match like that," Texas A&M women's tennis head coach Mark Weaver said. "We fought until the bitter end and gave ourselves a chance to win even though we definitely did not play up to the best of our ability. Even after a slow start in singles, we were able to force a bit of change in momentum and find some energy about midway through the singles. We were a point away from going up 6-5 in the third set on Tatiana's [Makarova] and were in great shape in the third set on Katya's [Townsend] court.."
The Aggies dropped the doubles point to open the match for the first time in their last five matches. The Gators claimed a 6-1 win on court two by Tsveta Dimitrova and Ida Jarlskog over A&M's Katya Townsend and Renee McBryde before A&M evened the doubles tally with a 6-3 win on court one by No. 63 Jayci Goldsmith and Tatiana Makarova over UF's Victoria Emma and McCartney Kessler. UF clinched the point with a 7-6(3) win on court three by Sydney Berlin and Marlee Zein over A&M's Riley McQuaid and Lucia Quiterio.
A&M evened the match quickly in singles play as Florida's No. 38 Kessler was forced to retire due to injury on court two against A&M's Goldsmith. With the score knotted a one-all, the Gators posted four first set victories, but A&M forced third sets on three of those courts. Florida regained the advantage, 2-1, with a 6-4, 6-0 win on court six by Berlin over A&M's Dorthea Faa-Hviding.
A&M evened the match at two-all with an impressive three-set win by McQuaid on court five over Dimitrova. McQuaid claimed the first set, 6-3, before Dimitrova forced the final frame with a 6-4 win in the second set. McQuaid posted her team-leading 17th dual victory with a resounding 6-1 victory in the third set.
The Gators closed out the match with a win on court four by Zein over A&M's McBryde and on court three by No. 67 Emma over A&M's Makarova.