The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss
Texas A&M
Tight Top 25 Battle Goes to A&M
3/29/2015 | Women's Tennis
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OXFORD, Miss. -- In a top 25 battle, the No. 15 Texas A&M Aggies rallied to top the No. 21 Ole Miss women's tennis team 4-2 here Sunday at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center in a match that came down to a couple of third sets.
The Rebels (11-8, 3-7) won the doubles point and senior Julia Jones won her 98th career match, but the Aggies secured straight set wins at five and two to tie the match, before winning 6-4 in the third at six to take a 3-2 lead.
With the Rebels up 4-0 in the third set at No. 4 singles, all eyes were focused on court three and the battle between freshman Natalie Suk and A&M's 77th-ranked Saska Gavrilovska. Suk led 4-2 in the final set, but Gavrilovska won four straight games to clinch the victory.
"It's a tough one to swallow," head coach Mark Beyers said. "You try to take solace in the fact that we played a lot better and competed better than we did on Friday against LSU. We talked after the match on Friday about how many one-sided sets we had. Today, we only had one of those. We played with a lot more energy today.
"Texas A&M is a good team, we're a good team, and you lose a couple of matches 6-4 in the third."
After Erin Stephens and Mai El Kamash won 8-5 at No. 2 doubles, the Rebels secured the opening point of the match with a huge tiebreaker win, 8-7(3) at No. 3 doubles from Marija Milutinovic and Iris Verboven.
A&M tied the match when Anna Mamalat defeated Zalina Khairudinova 6-1, 6-3 at No. 5 singles.
Jones, ranked No. 14, gave the Rebels a 2-1 lead when she finished off 32nd-ranked Rachel Pierson 6-3, 6-3 at No. 1 singles for her 25th win of the year. Jones improved to 7-3 in the SEC. She now needs just two wins to become the fifth member of the 100-club in singles.
The Aggies squared the match again as 57th-ranked Rutuja Bhosale defeated El Kamash in two close sets, 6-4, 6-4, at No. 2 singles. They got their first lead when Stefania Hristov finished off a comeback against Verboven 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 at No. 6 singles.
The Rebels will hit the road next weekend for matches at No. 6 Georgia and Tennessee, before closing out the regular season at home April 11 against arch-rival Mississippi State.
For more information on Ole Miss Women's Tennis, follow the Rebels on Twitter, @OleMissWTennis, on Facebook atOleMissWTennis and on Instagram at OleMissWTennis.
Players Mentioned
