Tennis earns mixed results in Lubbock

By Prem Ramkumar     2/19/09 6:00pm

It looks like the women's tennis team is finding some resolve. The Owls traveled to the McLeod Tennis Center in Lubbock, Tex., last weekend, where they lost a back-and-forth battle with the University of Arizona 4-3 before showcasing their rebound power with a 5-2 route of Texas Tech University. The team is now 8-2 on the year.After a slate of marshmallow opponents and easy home matches, last weekend's lineup was perhaps the toughest three-day stretch the Owls will have during the regular season.

Head coach Elizabeth Schmidt said that the currently-unranked Wildcat squad is highly underrated and much more formidable than the polls indicate. Despite the loss, she was proud of the solid effort.

"I was really pleased with the doubles play all weekend, but we came off really slow in singles," Schmidt said. "We are never happy with a loss, but I did like that we got to experience a close match because that simply cannot be replicated in practice. We needed that match to make us tougher."

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The match began in Rice's favor, as the Owls swept the doubles point in convincing fashion. In singles, however, the two teams were more evenly matched. Rice and Arizona traded points until the score was 3-3, and all eyes turned to junior Rebecca Lin's neck-and-neck contest with Sarah Landsman.

A microcosm of the match itself, Lin's duel with Landsman went down to the wire, but Lin's comeback fell just short as the Wildcat won 2-6, 6-3, 4-6 to clinch the victory.

"We knew going in as a team they were very good, and we were surprised that they were unranked," Lin said. "Of course, there was a lot of pressure on me at the end, but I know that we win as a team and we lose as a team. This was a very good match because it was our first real close test. Next time we will be better prepared."

Not letting a loss to an unranked opponent affect the next day's play, the Owls went into their contest against the 74th-ranked Red Raiders unfazed. Once again, the Owls blitzed the host squad, grabbing all three doubles matches with little doubt. Rice then turned up the pressure, and the visitors grabbed the first five match points to seal the victory.

Unlike the day before, the Owls were able to start with strong doubles play which carried momentum into singles.

The tandem of Lin and freshman Alex Rasch, along with sophomores Jessica Jackson and Varsha Shiva-Shanker, gave Rice the doubles point with runaway victories. Soon after, Jackson and Rasch easily put away their opponents in straight sets, while sophomore Varsha Shiva-Shanker finished a streaky 6-1, 0-6, 6-0 win over Simone Templeton to send the Red Raiders packing.

"We have a very resilient team," Schmidt said. "I was extremely proud of how they came out against Texas Tech. We were banged up, but we came out playing hard. We have to have that mentality, especially over the next few weeks. I was happy this weekend and we have shown strength in the face of adversity. We are a tight-knit group and we really lift each other up ... which will greatly help us this weekend because we will be in a very exciting atmosphere that will help us gauge where we stand against the top teams."

The atmosphere that Schmidt alluded to will be on the West Coast, where the Owls travel next to face 43rd-ranked Sacramento State (5-0) and 36th-ranked University of Washington (6-1) in Seattle, Wash.

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