South Alabama brings women's tennis trouble

By Prem Ramkumar     3/26/09 7:00pm

On the road or back at home-not-so-sweet-home, the women's tennis team is struggling to win these days. With their second consecutive 4-3 loss, their fourth defeat in a row, the Owls fell both to the University of South Alabama and out of the rankings. Scheduled to play at 3 p.m. on the Saturday of Beer Bike, the match was delayed for over an hour due to the men's ongoing match against Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Beginning at 4:15 p.m., the delay caused the players to start doubles alongside the men's match play. The match lasted nearly six hours before the Lady Jags ground out a victory at Rice's expense. On the bright side, though, the men were victorious in a 4-3 match.

Doubles has plagued Rice for the past four matches and once again proved to make the difference in Saturday's match. The previous week's match against the University of Louisville bore uncanny resemblance to the battle against South Alabama and resulted in the same final tally. The only difference this time was that the Owls were the home team, showing that playing at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium is not an automatic win.

Rice was swept in doubles, but the matches were closely contested. However, the big points to earn the victories were simply not won. Junior Julie Chao and freshman Ana Guzman faltered at the first spot in a 8-5 loss, and junior Rebecca Lin and sophomore Jessica Jackson fell soon after. At the third spot, freshman Rebekka H?nle and freshman Alex Rasch lost a dogfight 8-6.

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In singles, the Owls showed familiar resilience and jumped out to a 3-1 lead with wins from H?nle, Jackson and Lin in straight set victories. But yet again, all South Alabama needed was to split the singles matches, which it did handily.

Somehow, Rice managed to lose the last three matches, each going to a decisive third set. Chao lost a nail-biter 6-4, 2-6, 6-7 (4), and Guzman lost 2-6, 6-4, 2-6 after a valiant comeback. Sophomore Varsha Shiva-Shankar was reinserted into the singles lineup at the sixth spot to take over for Rasch, who has played there all year, but fell short 6-7 (5), 7-5, 2-6. South Alabama deserves credit for being able to fight back on the road in three different matches to take home the victory, but the Owls had numerous opportunities to get their first win in nearly a month.

"I told the team to be satisfied with the effort but not the result," Head Coach Elizabeth Schmidt said. "They put all their heart out there. They fought each match out both on and off the court. It was a very long day, but they were still there cheering each other on. We need to learn how to step on the accelerator at the end of matches when it gets close, but I'm still very proud of the girls."

The team's youth has been exposed with these close losses, but at the same time the good news is that very affliction: youth. The players and coaching staff are optimistic that these matches early in their Rice careers will result in more experience that will soon turn these heartbreaking losses into clutch wins.

The Owls get back on court at Jake Hess for the rest of the season. Today and Saturday they face off against the University of Texas-Pan American and Conference USA-rival University of Tulsa in preparation for the C-USA Championships, which will be held at Rice from April 16-19.

"We have been training hard, and we are ready for these upcoming matches," Guzman said. "We are excited to play conference and ready to win. We are only improving."

Despite the several difficult losses, the team has still managed to play together and have fun playing tennis.

"We are still excited to go out there and win," H?nle said. "We are good because we are all very close friends and know each other well."

Still, being close off the court does not equate to on-court performance, as signified by the team's four-match losing streak.

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