Photo by Tyler Lamb / Sports Editor
No. 12 Middle Tennessee women’s tennis closed out their season Thursday afternoon following a nail-bitter 4-3 loss to No. 5 North Texas at the Conference USA Women’s Tennis Championships.
The women duo of Josefina Zehnder and Marta Peris Herrero took the first loss of the day as they beat 6-1 in doubles play Alax Thoma and Minyang Liang.
MTSU would draw even with the Mean Green moments later as court No. 2 finished up in favor of the Blue Raiders. Lidia Burrows and Costanza Magazzini won their match 6-2 and hoped to pull off the upset with another win in No. 1 doubles.
MTSU’s Sarah Sediri and Luisa Zirilli would fall, however, 6-4 to C-USA standouts Maria Konovona and Tamuna Kutubidze.
Down 1-0 overall, MTSU had their work cutout for them.
The Mean Green would continue their hot start as reigning C-USA Player of the Week award recipient, Kutubidze, got the singles win over Magazzini 6-3, 6-2.
The lone senior on the MTSU squad, Sediri, got her revenge fast. The Canada native won in straight sets 6-3, 6-2 in the bottom of the lineup. Minutes later, the Raiders tied it all up as Zirill snuck out the hard fought W over Alexandra Heczey 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 to tie the overall score at 2-2.
Both teams would again trade singles wins as the match would be tied 3-3 going down to the final match on court No. 5 against Herrero and Liang.
North Texas was simply too much for the young Raider, beating her 6-4, 0-6, 6-7 and eliminating MTSU from the C-USA Tournament by taking the overall score, 4-3.
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