Spartan women’s tennis returned to action this weekend in a double header against the No.45 ranked Wake Forest on Saturday and Xavier on Sunday.
The women’s tennis team suffered a huge setback last weekend while in Chicago to face off against DePaul. Most of their gear was taken from their car including tennis rackets, laptops, and personal items.
Despite the blow last weekend, they came out strong on Saturday against Wake Forest, who has an impressive 7-0 record
The Spartans won two out of the three doubles matches which secured them a single point, giving them confidence going into the singles. The pair of Lexi Baylis and Emily Meyers won their single set game 7-5. Erin Faulkner and Allie Bear won their doubles game 6-2. While, the pair of Davina Nguyen and Athena Trouillot fell 6-1 to an on point Demon Deacon doubles team.
It was a whole new level of tennis seen in the singles. Wake Forest really demonstrated why it is ranked No.45 in the nation. It won five out of a total of six single games. Only, freshmen Emily Metcalf was able to come up with a win on court number 5 after a hard fought game spanning over three sets. After the game she said, “I tend to get a little mad when I lose. The second set I came out a little bit on fire and a little bit mad so that really helped.”
Sophomore Baylis held a positive outlook on the match.
“The doubles was very good. We won a point against a very good team,” Baylis said. “Going into the singles, all the matches were really close, all these girls were pretty top ranked and we hung with them. We fought pretty hard. It was a good match.”
The Spartans lost to a very tough opposition. Too many unforced errors caused the Spartans to slump to a disappointing defeat at home. The final score at the end was 2-5.
Next up on Sunday was a challenging match against Xavier. Coming into the game against the Green and White, Xavier had a record of 5-2. As anticipated Xavier gave a strong performance.
Fresh off a loss, MSU was looking for a much needed win. The doubles commenced and from the get go, Xavier had the upper hand, winning two out of three games. The doubles were over and Xavier was leading 1-0.
The Spartans, thirsty for a win entered the singles games looking extremely motivated. Baylis fell to her second singles defeat of the weekend 4-6, 1-6. On the other hand, Metcalf won her second game of the weekend 7-5, 6-4. Aslina Chua and Meyers were back to winning ways. Chua won 6-3, 6-3 and Meyers had a tough game winning 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. Throughout each game the crowd had the fellow Spartans back, cheering them to victory.
Trouillot lost her game 3-6, 5-7. It was all down to freshmen Nguyen. After a very hard fought game, coming up with forehand and backhand winners consistently each set, she edged to victory 2-6, 6-2, 7-5. This gave the Spartans a very narrow win. The final score was 4-3 bringing the Spartans overall record to a respectable 4-2.
Both Wake Forest and Xavier were tough opponents. The Spartans gave everything this past weekend to come up with a win, which at the end they managed to accomplish.
When asked about the team’s mentality this weekend, head coach Simone Jardim, replied “We wanna be able to compete against high ranked teams. We were right there with them. We are very close to them,” Jardim said “These games make us stronger and we are slowly getting there to take on high level opponents.”
The Spartan women’s tennis team is making significant progress every week and is slowly starting to compete head to head against high ranked opponents.
Michigan State is back in action again on Sunday, Feb. 22 away from home at No.22 Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky at 11 a.m.
