WACO, Texas – Texas A&M's Saska Gavrilovska played her way into the second round of the NCAA Women's Tennis Singles Championship with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Taylor Ng of Dartmouth today at Baylor University's Hurd Tennis Center in Waco.
Aggie teammate Rachel Pierson was not as fortunate, suffering a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 setback to 17th-ranked Viktoriya Lushkova of Oklahoma State.
Gavrilovska, who was eliminated in the first round of the 64-player singles tournament as a freshman in 2014, becomes only the second sophomore in Texas A&M history to reach the round of 32, joining Lynn Staley who accomplished the feat in 1990. Gavrilovska, also the second player in program history to compete in the tournament as both a freshman and a sophomore, will face No. 8-seed Sydney Campbell of Vanderbilt Thursday at noon.
Ng, the automatic qualifier from the Ivy League and ranked 97th in the nation in singles, broke Gavrilovska's serve to open the match and went on to hold a 4-2 lead. Gavrilovska then rallied to win the next four games to win the set, 6-4.
The second set was on serve until Gavrilovska broke to take a 3-1 lead. Ng was unable to break back, and Gavrilovska pulled away to win, 6-2, snapping Ng's 10-match win streak. Gavrilovska, ranked 54th, improves to 19-12 overall, including 12-7 against ranked opponents.
"The match was real tough at the beginning," Gavrilovska said. "I got off to a slow start. I was really tight and nervous just playing the first round of NCAAs, but I was able to overcome it, just being tougher. In the second set, everything started to fall into place and I was able to win the set fairly easily.
"It feels really good to be going to the second round. It is always tough in the first round of the tournament. You have to be tougher than your opponent, so in some ways I believe I will be much better tomorrow but I also didn't play that well today, so I have to just focus really well and not be that nervous."
Pierson, a sophomore from Princeton, N.J., also got off to a slow start as Lushkova reeled off four straight games to close out a 6-2 first-set victory.
The 26th-ranked Pierson found herself down a break at 2-1 in the second set. Pierson would break back to tie the score at 2-2 and then broke again to go up 4-2. Lushkova later got within 5-4, but Pierson broke Lushkova for the third time in the frame to win the set, 6-4, and force a third set.
Pierson carried the momentum into the final set and built a 5-3 lead. Lushkova broke to get within 5-4, but Pierson was at match point, 40-30, in the ensuing game. Lushkova, a sophomore who earned All-America honors as a freshman after advancing to the round of 16, overcame the deficit and held serve to even the set at 5-5. Lushkova would also win the next two games to close out the match.
"I had a really slow start and she came out hitting all the right shots," a disappointed Pierson said. "She wasn't missing. It's kind of hard to get used to these courts. They are really slow, and I thought my timing was a little bit early. I lost the first set pretty quickly, but the second set I was able to get my timing back on track and I was able to pull it out. In the third set I felt like I was ready to go. She started playing well again, but I felt like I had a good chance in the third. I found myself up 5-3, match point. She had a really good solid serve game and then broke me. I was kind of frazzled after that, not being able to close out. She ended up closing out 7-5, staying mentally tough the whole time. It is something to learn from."
Pierson, the 2015 ITA Texas Region Player to Watch and a member of the All-SEC first team, was making her first career appearance in singles and ends the season 22-14. She will get another shot for a postseason victory Thursday as she and Eva Paalma, a freshman from Estonia, begin competition in the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championship. The Aggie duo will take on Desirae Krawczyk and Stephanie Vlad of Arizona State in the first round at 5 p.m.
"Motivation," Pierson said when asked what she takes from today's match into her doubles match tomorrow. "This means I have to work harder. I have to know I can win. Tomorrow I'm going to be more motivated to fight out there and win a couple of matches with Eva and hopefully go all the way."
Pierson and Paalma are 11-5 in doubles, and the pair is coming off an 8-5 victory over ninth-ranked Robin Anderson and Jennifer Brady of UCLA in the round of 16 of the team championship.
Krawczyk and Vlad are ranked 26th with a 15-4 record. The winner between the Aggies and the Sun Devils will take on the winner between Auburn's eighth-ranked Pleun Burgmans and Emily Flickinger and Baylor's 14th-ranked Ema Burgic and Blair Shankle in the round of 16 on Friday.
All matches will be the best of three sets. Regular scoring and a 12-point tiebreaker at six games all will be used for all matches.
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