No. 20 Texas A&M Falls to No. 15 Baylor

Wednesday, March 22

Waco, Texas

5:00 PM

Texas A&M

Baylor

Mar 22, 2017 | Women's Tennis

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

WACO, Texas – No. 20 Texas A&M took on 15^th-ranked Baylor in a top-20 midweek tilt at the Hurd Tennis Center, where the host Bears defeated the Aggies, 4-0, to snap a nine-match losing skid against their former Southwest Conference and Big 12 foe.

Texas A&M, which was playing without senior Rachel Pierson, who has held down the No. 1 doubles and singles lines, drops to 10-8. Baylor picked up its third consecutive victory to improve to 13-4.

"Coming off a loss, you try to find the positive signs, and I feel like there are a lot of positives to draw from it" Texas A&M coach Mark Weaver said at the conclusion of the match. "We definitely had a rough go of it in the doubles. We had to play without one of the best doubles teams in the nation and mix up the doubles lineup, and we were out of sync. The doubles point is one that if we were a little sharper, maybe we get that point and maybe things look a little bit better in singles."

Baylor won the first two doubles matches to be completed to take a 1-0 lead. Macarena Olivares and Stefania Hristov fell to Jessica Hinojosa and Angelina Shakhraichuk, 6-3, at the No. 3 line and Domenica Gonzalez and Eva Paalma, playing the No. line for the first time in place of 12^th-ranked Pierson and her partner, Rutuja Bhosale, fell, 6-3, to 32^nd-ranked Blair Shankle and Elizabeth Profit, who clinched the point for the Bears.

Court 2 was tied at 4-4 between A&M's Bhosale and Tina Bokhua and Baylor's Theresa Van Zyl and Karina Traxler when the doubles point was clinched and play was stopped.

Baylor got out to a fast start in singles, jumping out to at least a 3-0 lead on four of six courts. A&M managed to come back on two of the courts to take the first set, but Baylor still pulled out first-set victories on four courts.

Van Zyl was first off after reeling off six consecutive games during a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Olivares at the No. 4 line to give the Bears a 2-0 lead.

Shankle, ranked No. 4 in the nation in singles had jumped out to a 4-0 lead against 91^st-ranked Bhosale, who was playing the No. 1 line for the first time. Bhosale then won six consecutive games to take the first set, 6-4, but Shankle regrouped and took the second set, 6-0. The third set was on serve at 1-1 before Shankle pulled away, winning five straight games to win the final set, 6-1, and give the Bears a 3-0 lead.

Shakhraichuk clinched the match at the No. 5 line, winning the final two games against Bokhua to close out the first set, 6-4. Shakhraichuk took a 3-1 lead in the second set, but Bokhua came back to go up, 5-4 and 6-5. The set was decided in a tiebreaker in which Shakhraichuk pulled away for a 7-3 win that clinched the 4-0 victory for the Bears.

The remaining matches were stopped once the match was decided. A&M's Saska Gavrilovska had come back from a 3-0 deficit to win her first set, 6-4, against Profit at No. 2, and Profit was at set point at 5-3 in the second set when the match was halted.

After dropping the first set, 7-5, at No. 3, Gonzalez came back in the second set against Rhiann Newborn, winning three consecutive games to close out a 6-3 win and force a third set. Gonzalez had won the first three games of the third set when the match was abandoned.

Hristov had also force a third set after she dropped her first set, 6-4, to Hinojosa at the No. 6 line. Hristov won six consecutive games to take the second set, 6-2, and the third set was tied at 2-2 when play was stopped.

"We started out very slow in the singles," Weaver said. "I think it's partly getting used to the court speed. After the slow start, we almost made a turn. We made a great turn around in four of the six matches, where we were way down and things weren't looking good. Rutuja was down in the first and played a great first set. In the other three matches, we really turned it around and it really looked like we could possibly pull out a comeback towards the end.

"It turned out to be a rough dogfight. It always is a tough match against Baylor. We've had a lot of close matches with them, and the results have gone our way in recent years. Even though it was 4-0 today, it was a very close match. A lot of those matches we definitely weren't too far off from coming up with four singles wins. I'm encouraged. With Rachel out, any time a team's No. 1 player is out, everyone has to step up, and I thought they did a good job of stepping up, but it just wasn't quite enough."

Texas A&M returns to Southeastern Conference play and continues its four-match road swing on Saturday as the Aggies take on No. 28 LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. First serve is at 11 a.m. at the LSU Tennis Complex

Visit 12thMan.com for more information on Texas A&M women's tennis. Aggie fans also can keep up to date with the A&M women's tennis team on Twitter by following @AggieWTEN or on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Aggie-Womens-Tennis/143874782434654

Texas A&M vs Baylor
Mar 22, 2017 at Waco, Texas
(Hurd Tennis Center)
#15 Baylor 4, #20 Texas A&M 0

Singles competition
1. #4 Blair Shankle (BU) def. #91 Rutuja Bhosale (A&M), 4-6, 6-0, 6-1
2. Elizabeth Profit (BU) vs. Saska Gavrilovska (A&M), 4-6, 5-3 unfinished
4. Rhiann Newborn (BU) vs. Domenica Gonzalez (A&M), 7-5, 3-6, 0-3 unfinished
3. Theresa Van Zyl (BU) def. Macarena Olivares (A&M), 6-2, 6-4
5. Angelina Shakhraichuk (BU) def. Tina Bokhua (A&M), 6-4, 7-6 (3)
6. Jessica Hinojosa (BU) vs. Stefania Hristov (A&M), 6-4, 2-6, 2-2 unfinished

Doubles competition
1. #32 Blair Shankle/Elizabeth Profit (BU) def. Domenica Gonzalez/Eva Paalma (A&M), 6-3
2. Theresa Van Zyl/Karina Traxler (BU) vs. Rutuja Bhosale/Tina Bokhua (A&M), 4-4 unfinished
3. Jessica Hinojosa/Angelina Shakhraichuk (BU) def. Macarena Olivares/Stefania Hristov (A&M), 6-3

Match Notes:
Texas A&M 10-8; National ranking #20
Baylor 13-4; National ranking #15
Order of finish: Doubles (3, 1); Singles (4, 1, 5)

Pronunciations
Rutuja Bhosale                       rue-too-jah BO-slay
Tina Bokhua                           BO-kwah
Saska Gavrilovska                  SAUSH-ka gav-ril-ohv-ska
Stefania Hristov                     steff-on-ya RIS-tov
Eva Paalma                             A-va palma