Texas A&M Falls to No. 2 Vanderbilt, 4-1

Friday, April 20

Knoxville, Tenn.

2 p.m.

Texas A&M

Vanderbilt

Apr 20, 2018 | Women's Tennis

Box Score

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. –Texas A&M put up a fight but was unable to upset No. 2-ranked and top-seeded Vanderbilt in a 4-1 quarterfinal loss today at the SEC Women's Tennis Tournament at Barksdale Tennis Stadium.

The No. 9-seeded Aggies, who knocked off 24^th-ranked and No. 8 seed Kentucky, 4-3, in second-round action on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals, end the regular season, 16-10. Vanderbilt, the SEC regular season champion with a 12-1 conference record, won its ninth consecutive match to improve to 20-3 overall. The Commodores will face the winner between No. 4 seed Georgia and No. 5 seed Ole Miss in the semifinals on Saturday.

The doubles point went down to the wire with the last two matches determined by a tiebreaker. The Commodores, who were taking on the Aggies for the first time in an SEC Tournament match, gained the early edge at the start of doubles play as Christina Rosca and Amanda Meyer defeated A&M's freshman duo of Riley McQuaid and Iulia Ivascu, 6-1, at the No. 3 line.

A&M's Macarena Olivares and Tatiana Olivares then evened the race for the doubles points as they pulled away from 58^th-ranked Emma Kurtz and Emily Smith at the No. 2 line. The match was back on serve at 4-4, and both teams held serve to force a tiebreaker at 6-6. Vanderbilt took its first lead in the tiebreaker and was at set point at 6-5, but the Aggies reeled off three consecutive points to close out the tiebreaker and win the match, 7-6.

The point came down to the No. 1 line, where A&M's 59^th-ranked senior duo of Eva Paalma and Domenica Gonzalez overcame a 5-2 deficit, winning three consecutive games to tie the match at 5-5. The Commodores went ahead, 6-5, following an A&M double fault, but the Aggies did not allow a point en route to breaking Vanderbilt's serve in the next game to tie the match at 6-6 and force a tiebreaker.

The Commodores were up 4-1 when court 2 finished, and they went on to build a 6-1 lead. A&M managed to get back within 6-4, but Vanderbilt won the next point to win the tiebreaker, 7-4, and clinch the doubles point.

A&M won two of six first sets in singles, and three of the other sets were narrowly won by Vanderbilt by either a 7-5 score or by a tiebreaker.

Meyer put the Commodores ahead, 2-1, with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over McQuaid at the No. 4 line. Ivascu, who played only one singles match during the SEC regular season, a straight-set loss to Vanderbilt's Dvorak on April 5, continued her heroic tournament run. After winning the last match standing in A&M's victory over Kentucky the day before, the Romanian put the Aggies on the scoreboard against the Commodores and within 2-1 as she finished off Smith, 7-5, 6-1, at the No. 6 line.

Vanderbilt, however, was beginning to pull away in the second set on three of the remaining four courts. Dvorak gave the Commodores a 3-1 lead with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Makarova at No. 5. Contreras, ranked seventh in the nation in singles, had dropped her first set to 76^th-ranked Olivares, 6-2, at the No. 2 line, but Contreras then disposed of Olivares, 6-1, 6-0, in the next two sets to get the win and clinch the 4-1 victory for the Commodores.

Gonzalez had forced a first-set tiebreaker against eighth-ranked Astra Sharma at No. 1, but the Commodore, who was the 2017 SEC Player of the Year, pulled away to win the opening set, 7-6 (7-3). Sharma held a 5-0 lead in the second set when the match was abandoned.

Paalma had narrowly fallen to 44^th-ranked Rosca, 7-5, in the first set at the No. 3 line, but Paalma was up a break, 5-3, in the second set when play was stopped.

Texas A&M now awaits the NCAA Championship Selection Show, which will reveal the 64-team field on May 1 at 4 p.m. on NCAA.com. The individual singles and doubles participants will be announced May 2 by 5 p.m.

Texas A&M postmatch quotes:

Texas A&M Head Coach Mark Weaver

On today's match…
"All credit to Vanderbilt today. They are an excellent team. I thought we just really came out, compared to the way we played a few weeks ago against them, with some big improvements. Much better in the doubles. We were definitely more prepared in the doubles today. The doubles point came down to the wire. Credit to Vanderbilt for coming up with the big shots and the big points. We had a great start in the singles. It looked like we were going to maybe get the majority of the first sets. We were up in five of the six first sets. Great teams like Vanderbilt find a way, so all credit to them. I'm very proud of the fight of the girls. It was a huge improvement from when we played them a few weeks ago, and just looking at the whole tournament in perspective, coming out and beating Kentucky yesterday, a team we had lost to a few weeks back, we hit a rough stretch of some matches there, but I'm very proud of the girls of how we responded and came out. At the end of the day, obviously you want to win the match at the end of the day, but I'm always looking for the positives, and we definitely made some improvements in the recent weeks."

On thoughts of being selected for the NCAA Tournament…
"The Kentucky match yesterday should put us in a good position for the NCAA Tournament. I believe we will be a No. 2 seed there, so we'll just wait for the selection show and see where the powers that be send us."

Tennis Match Results
Texas A&M vs Vanderbilt
4/20/2018 at Knoxville, Tenn.
(Barksdale Stadium)

#2 Vanderbilt 4, #36 Texas A&M 1

Singles competition
1. #8 Astra Sharma (VANDY) vs. Domenica Gonzalez (A&M) 7-6 (7-3), 5-0, unfinished
2. #7 Fernanda Contreras (VANDY) def. #75 Macarena Olivares (A&M) 2-6, 6-1, 6-0
3. #44 Christina Rosca (VANDY) vs. Eva Paalma (A&M) 7-5, 3-5, unfinished
4. Amanda Meyer (VANDY) def. Riley McQuaid (A&M) 6-3, 6-1
5. Summer Dvorak (VANDY) def. Tatiana Makarova (A&M) 7-5, 6-3
6. Iulia Ivascu (A&M) def. Emily Smith (VANDY) 7-5, 6-1

Doubles competition
1. Fernanda Contreras/Summer Dvorak (VANDY) def. #59 Eva Paalma/Domenica Gonzalez (A&M) 7-6 (7-4)
2. Tatiana Makarova/Macarena Olivares (A&M) def. #58 Emma Kurtz/Emily Smith (VANDY) 7-6 (8-6)
3. Christina Rosca/Amanda Meyer (VANDY) def. Riley McQuaid/Iulia Ivascu (A&M) 6-1

Match Notes:
Texas A&M 16-10; National ranking #36
Vanderbilt 20-3; National ranking #2
Order of finish: Doubles (3,2,1); Singles (4,6,5,2)
SEC Women's Tennis Tournament - Quarterfinals

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