Texas A&M
TCU
Aggies Women Defeat TCU 4-0 to Advance to Round of 16
May 10, 2015 | Women's Tennis
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – No. 10 Texas A&M earned its third consecutive and fourth overall berth in the round of 16 of the NCAA Women's Tennis Championship by defeating 17th-ranked TCU, 4-0, today at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
The Aggies (17-5), who avenge a 4-2 home loss to the Frogs in the second match of the season which kept A&M from advancing to the ITA National Team Indoor Championship, will face the winner between No. 7 seed UCLA and Northwestern on Friday, May 15 at 9 a.m. at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center in Waco.
A&M began the match by jumping out to leads on all three doubles courts and proceeding to win two of three to take a 1-0 lead. At the No. 2 court, 39th-ranked Ines Deheza and Stefania Hristov won their first four games against TCU's Palina Dubavets and Alexis Pereira and went on to build a 7-2 lead. TCU held serve to get within 7-3 but then hit long at match point as the Aggies closed out the 8-3 victory.
In a match-up of ranked opponents at the No. 1 line, A&M's 13th-ranked Eva Paalma and Rachel Pierson were on serve at 3-3 until 30th-ranked Seda Arantekin and StefanieTan broke to take a 4-3 lead. The TCU duo continued to pull away and won, 8-4, snapping Paalma and Pierson's season-best seven-match win streak.
The doubles point came down to the No. 3 court, where A&M's Rutuja Bhosale and Saska Gavrilovska had jumped out to a 5-1 lead against Sofiko Kadzhaya and Simona Parajova. TCU cut the lead to 6-4 before A&M broke to go up, 7-4. A&M then held serve to cap the 8-4 victory that put the Aggies up, 1-0.
A&M began singles by winning first sets on all six courts, and although TCU started to make things interesting with several closely contested second sets, the Aggies managed to pull away for three straight-set wins at the lower half of the lineup to complete the shutout.
Hristov won her first set against Pereira, 6-2, at No. 6 singles , but Piereira came back from a 3-1 second-set deficit to take a 5-4 lead. Hristov, however, won the next three games to win, 7-5, to give the Aggies a 2-0 lead.
Paalma, the only freshman on the senior-less Aggie squad, jumped out to a 5-1 first-set lead against Arantekin at No. 5 and went on to win the opening frame, 6-2. The second set was on serve at 2-2 before Paalma won the next four games to wrap up a 6-2, 6-2 win that put the Maroon and White ahead, 3-0.
Deheza never trailed in her match against Dubavets at No. 4. Deheza went up a break at 3-2 in the opening set, and that was all she needed as she went on to win 6-4. The junior from Bolivia also broke to open the second set, and once again, that was the only cushion she needed as both players held serve for the remainder of the match with Deheza getting the 6-4, 6-4 victory to clinch the winning point for the Aggies.
At the No. 1 line, 26th-ranked Pierson, who entered the match riding a team-best three-match win streak in singles, held a 6-2, 5-4 advantage against No. 90 Tan when play was stopped.
Gavrilovska, ranked 54th, had won the first set against 46th-ranked Parajova, 6-3, and the second set was on serve at 5-5 when the match was abandoned.
TCU (19-9) won its only set at the No. 3 line as Kadzhaya dropped her first set against 66th-ranked Bhosale, 6-1, but came back to win the second set, 6-3. Kadzhaya was up a break, 3-2, in the final set, but the match went unfinished.
The contest marked the fourth time the two teams met in an NCAA tournament match and the third consecutive postseason victory for the Aggies against their former Southwest Conference foe. In the preceding NCAA match-up, the Aggies posted a 4-1 second-round home victory over TCU during their historic drive to the finals of the 2013 tournament.
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Texas A&M Head Coach Howard Joffe Quotes:
On getting revenge against TCU after the early season loss…
"For me it feels good in the sense that we started off the year so slowly and got bitten badly in January by TCU, which prevented us from going to the indoors and also prevented us from getting a good start in the rankings. I know we have a good team, but to tell 18- and 19-year-old girls that there are 75 ranked teams in the nation and you're not one of them is a tough thing for them to handle. Today at a personal level it felt good to get the win, but more than anything I am delighted for the girls. If you saw the tennis today, they came ready to play. There was a little extra fire in the belly, and they really took it to the opposition today."
On bottom half of order playing well and winning…
"I think our struggles early in the year were at No. 1 and No. 2, and even No. 3 we were having a tough time. As the season unfolded, Rachel (Pierson) emerged as someone who was winning consistently and Saska (Gavrilovska), if you watched her play today, is right there at the top of the lineup. The one thing that I knew all along is we've got seven girls that could play at any spot in the lineup. If we are not awful good at one and two, we are exponentially good at four, five and six. Our team is very balanced is probably the best way to characterize it."
On his thoughts on the team at this point of the season…
"I know we have a very excellent team. One of the things I said a few weeks ago was that our team was exhausted because of the bad weather and having to play so many matches in a row. I felt very confident that if we could get our breath, which happened courtesy of our early round loss in the conference tournament we could rest up and then focus on the NCAA tournament. It is not surprising that we are playing well. Again the draw doesn't get any easier for us. We are going to face the winner of Northwestern, who is a very good team, and defending NCAA champion UCLA. But come Friday we will be ready to go and be expecting to perform very well."
On if strategy changes going forward…
"Same as it's been. We will take a day here of rest and try to get a good week of practice in. One of the things of course the weather has to have the final punctuation on the season, and apparently it is going to rain all week down in Waco and all week here. We just need to figure out the best thing to do in terms of the preparation. But in terms of strategy in playing the matches, I know we will have three doubles teams and six singles girls absolutely ready to go come Friday."
TCU Head Coach Lee Taylor Walker Quotes
On his thoughts regarding the match…
"We knew we were going to play a good team. We were a little flat on doubles on the courts. It was a huge win for the No. 1 doubles team to get. Close to turning around some of those matches at 2 and 3 doubles but we just couldn't do it. Texas A&M is a great team, and I am super proud of our girls. There was a 15-minute stretch there in singles that we maybe could have turned it around and had a miracle come back. That was fun to get because sometimes you can play a match and not have that moment. You could be down and losing the entire time and never feel like you have a chance, and that is just not a good experience. I was proud of our girls for continuing to fight. We had a season where we didn't lose a match to any team outside of the top 18. I am proud of our girls, and the seniors played one and two all year. It is never fun to lose but at the same time I am proud of the way they fought. It has been a great experience and a great year."
#10 Texas A&M 4, #17 TCU 0
George P. Mitchell Tennis Center
College Station, Texas
NCAA Championship – Second Round
Singles - Order of finish: 6, 5, 4
1. #26 Rachel Pierson (A&M) vs. #90 Stefanie Tan (TCU), 6-2, 5-4 unfinished 2. #54 Saska Gavrilovska (A&M) vs. #46 Simona Parajova (TCU), 6-3, 5-5 unfinished 3. #66 Rutuja Bhosale (A&M) vs. Sofiko Kadzhaya (TCU), 6-1, 3-6, 2-3 unfinished 4. Ines Deheza (A&M) def. Palina Dubavets (TCU), 6-4, 6-4 5. Eva Paalma (A&M) def. Seda Arantekin (TCU), 6-2, 6-2 6. Stefania Hristov (A&M) def. Alexis Pereira (TCU), 6-2, 7-5
Doubles - Order of finish: 2, 1, 3
1. #30 Arantekin/Tan (TCU) def. #13 Paalma/Pierson (A&M), 8-4 2. #39 Deheza/Hristov (A&M) def. Dubavets/Pereira (TCU), 8-3 3. Bhosale/Gavrilovska (A&M) def. Kadzhaya/Parajova (TCU), 8-4
Team records:
Texas A&M: 17-5
TCU: 19-9
Players Mentioned
