Simon Elfrink
Sports Editor
After an electric 7-0 victory over North Alabama to start the season, Murray State tennis lost both games of a double header at the University of Missouri on Saturday, Jan. 23.
Despite falling short of a win during the trip to Columbia, Head Coach Jorge Caetano said he was pleased with how his team competed against a good team.
“Playing an SEC school is always tough,” Caetano said. “They always have strong teams, they’re always deep in their lineups, but we competed really well.”
The first match looked promising for the Racers, who started the day by winning the number one doubles match, featuring sophomore Natalie Slezakova and senior Stasya Sharapova.
However, doubles matches went sharply downhill afterwards, as the second and third pairs bounced in Missouri’s favor. In singles, sophomore Marit Kreugel salvaged a point for the Racers by winning her singles match in straight sets (6-2, 6-0). The next three singles to finish ended in wins for the Tigers, giving them the 4-1 clinch over the Racers.
Because of the nature of the competition, the rest of the singles matches were unable to finish, which was something Caetano was frustrated with.
“Unfortunately, we were playing clinch-clinch, which means whenever we get to four points we have to stop the match,” Caetano said. “That’s a shame, because we were up on the individual courts.”
Caetano went on to mention players like redshirt senior Sara Loncarevic, who didn’t get to finish her singles match despite leading in the third set.
“She showed resilience to get back and put herself in the position to win at number one against an SEC opponent,” Caetano said.
The second match of the day yielded an identical 4-1 victory for Missouri. Beginning with singles matches this time, the Racers dropped the first, third, fourth and fifth matches, allowing Missouri to grab four points early and avoid doubles competition. Still, Sharapova continued to perform at the top of her game all day, winning the second singles match 6-3 and 7-5, respectively.
Despite the box scores on the day, Caetano was happy with how the Racers performed against the stiff competition. He said his players stayed with them the whole way and believed they could win.
“Of course, you always want to win,” Caetano said. “But we know it was a good overall experience playing against a school at that level and being really competitive. [I’m] really happy with the way we’re competing, especially mentally. Even the matches we lost in straight sets it wasn’t because mentally we weren’t there. It was just a few points here and there that went their way, and they ended up winning but we stayed with them the whole time.”
The Racers will get a couple weeks to prepare before they take on Marshall University at the Kenlake Tennis Center on Friday, Feb. 5, at 3 p.m.
