HOUSTON – The UTSA women's tennis team battled through a third set tiebreaker at the final court, but ultimately fell to Rice, 4-3, at the George R. Brown Tennis Center in Houston.
After the duo of Adeliya Mukhutdinova and Stanislava Bobrovnikova fell to Rice's duo of Diae El Jardi/Darya Schwartzman, 6-1 at the No. 2 court, the first and third courts rallied to win the doubles point for the Roadrunners. Alexandra Weir and Fatima Gutierrez won the first doubles court at No.3, taking down Marte Lambrecht/Sydney Berlin by 6-2. Aleksandra Zlatarova and Magda Tuells secured the doubles point for UTSA as they won the No. 1 court by 6-3 over Rice's Maria Budin/Federica Trevisan.
From this point, the score bounced back and forth between Rice and UTSA. The Owls tied the score up at 1-1 as Lambrecht defeated Bobrovnikova by set scores of 6-3 and 6-1 at the sixth spot. Zlatarova won the Roadrunners their first singles point as she defeated El Jardi at the No. 1 court by 7-6 (4) and 6-1. The Owls then tied it up at 2-2 as Mukhutdinova battled to three sets but fell by set scores of 2-6, 6-3 and 5-7 to Schwartzman at the fourth court.
At the No. 3 spot, Gutierrez defeated Budin by 6-4 and 7-5 to regain the 3-2 lead. Tuells then fell to Saara Orav by set scores of 7-6 (2) and 6-0 as Rice once again tied it up at 3-3. Coming to the final court playing at No. 2, Weir and Berlin went to battle. Weir took the first set by 6-4, before Berlin took the second set by 6-2 to take it to a third set. In the last set, the two battled to a 6-6 tie to take it to a tiebreaker. In the tiebreaker, Berlin went up 7-2 to take the third set by 7-6 and win the final singles point. UTSA lost a close heartbreaker to Rice by 4-3.
UTSA's record falls to 8-6 overall, while Rice improves to a 5-4 record.
UP NEXT: The Roadrunners return home to host UT-Arlington at 1 p.m. on Sunday at UTSA Tennis Center.
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