Live Stats
WACO – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) women's tennis team hits the road for the first time in 2019 as it is set to face Baylor University on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Hurd Tennis Center.
All-Time Series
- UTRGV is 0-6 all-time against Baylor in a series that dates back to 1990.
- Baylor won the previous matchup 4-0 back on January 22, 2017 in Waco.
- All matches in the series have been in Waco.
Scouting Baylor
- Baylor is 0-1 on the season after falling 3-4 to Hawaii on January 12.
- Baylor lost the doubles point to Hawaii but got wins by Kris Sorokolet, Livia Kraus and Jessica Hinojosa in singles play but dropped the matches on courts two, four, and a three set match on court three.
- Six players return from last year's team, including Kraus who extended her singles win streak to 16 matches dating back to last season.
- Kraus headed into the spring with a ranking of 59thin ITA singles while Sorokolet ranks No. 114.
- Baylor will also play New Mexico on Saturday with its second match starting at 4 p.m.
Learning from the Season Opener
- UTRGV fell 1-6 to Sam Houston State in the season opener.
- The one point came in doubles play as UTRGV swept through the three matches.
- Sam Houston State returned the favor by sweeping through all singles matches.
- Several players played at new positions in the lineup and are still adjusting to their spots. Dominique Ibarra played at the No. 1 spot against Sam Houston State while not playing there once in 2018. Doris Aleksovska played all her matches at No. 5 last season while opening 2019 at the No. 2 spot.
"They all competed hard," UTRGV head coach
Sonia Hahn said. "I feel like they are still trying to find the cohesiveness to play together as a team. They all have a common goal right now but they all have to work together so that is something that is coming. It's always tough the first match of the season but it also exposes what you have to work on."
Doubles Worked But…
- Coach Hahn saw good things in doubles play with a couple of new tandems as Aleksovska and Michelle Walker and Ana Platisa and Nethmi Waduge played their first matches together.
- Aleksovska and Walker defeated Roos Gerritsen and Isidora Zivkovic 6-3 on court two.
- Platisa and Waduge picked up the 7-6 win over Ema Barkovic and Petra Kaszas on court three.
- Ibarra and Marine Darzyan picked up right where they left off in 2018 and picked up a 7-5 win over Sahaja Yamalapalli and Karla De La Luz Montalvo on court one to clinch the point.
- While going undefeated in doubles, Coach Hahn is still thinking about testing other doubles combinations in the early parts of the season.
"I liked those combinations," Hahn said. "At this point, I am not sure if I love them yet. We will continue to try some different ones. The good thing is that it is still early in the season so we can try a bunch of different combinations and see what we can do to find the best three doubles teams."
Freshmen Continuing to Learn
- Waduge, Platisa, and Katarina Sasaroga each got their first taste of dual match play.
- Waduge and Platisa saw success in doubles and Sasaroga played her singles match at the No. 6 spot to three sets.
- With four freshmen on the roster, they will be relied upon to contribute in the starting lineup and Coach Hahn hopes that the more they play, the more they will improve.
"I saw some good things. I saw some good improvement," Hahn said. "There was a little bit of rust that needs to come off from the holidays but I saw a lot better consistency. They all competed really hard. I was really pleased with their effort. I think now it's just a matter of getting those first match jitters out of the way and learning to execute under pressure."
Upcoming Schedule
- Feb. 4 @ Texas A&M-Corpus Christi – 2 p.m.
- Feb. 8 @ Texas A&M-Kingsville – 2 p.m.
- Feb. 10 vs. Lamar – 11 a.m.
- Feb. 16 @ TCU – 1 p.m.
- Feb. 17 @ UT Arlington – 10 a.m.
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