Alabama suffered its first loss of the season after falling to No. 21 UCF, 6-1, on Friday night at the Alabama Tennis Stadium. With the loss the Crimson Tide drops to 8-1 on the season, while the Knights improve to 5-2.
“We certainly expected a dog fight in this one,” head coach Jenny Mainz stated. “UCF is a really good team, they’ve had some quality wins this season and we played against them last year in Orlando and won a tough 4-3 match. But they are gritty, I think they’re a tenacious team, they’re well-coached and we knew it was going to be a battle. I think that we fought hard and we had opportunities and when you play a really good team like them, you have to capitalize on them.”
The Knights started off the match with wins on courts three and two to take the early 1-0 advantage.
UCF quickly pushed the lead up to 3-0 after picking up victories on courts four and two in singles. Shortly after. the Knights clinched the match on court two to go up 4-0. The two teams continued to play the rest of the matches out with junior Alba Cortina Pou picking up the 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (8-6), come-from-behind win over Domenika Turkovic. Senior No. 47 Andie Daniell had a three-set battle on court one, before falling to No. 34 Valeryia Zeleva to end the match, 6-1.
The Crimson Tide will return to action on Sunday at 10 a.m. CT to take on ETSU at the Alabama Tennis Stadium. The match will be streamed live on RollTide.com.
Alabama Results
Doubles
Daniell/Ito vs. No. 16 Kuznetsova/Zeleva, 5-4, unf.
Stolmar/Mattel def. Fabian/Cortina Pou, 6-4
Serrano/Turkovic def. Gintrand/Selim, 6-2
Singles
No. 34 Valeryia Zeleva def. No. 47 Andie Daniell 6-3, 3-6, 6-4
Ksenia Kuznetsova def. Moka Ito, 6-4, 6-1
Rebeka Stolmar def. Jacqueline Pelletier, 6-1, 6-1
Marie Mattel def. Luca Fabian, 6-3, 6-1
Alba Cortina Pou def. Domenika Turkovic, 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (8-6)
Nandini Sharma def. Ann Selim, 6-3, 6-1
