TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – The Arkansas Tech women's tennis team opened up their spring portion of their 2021-22 season on Wednesday and played a dual match at Northeastern State. The Golden Suns narrowly fell to NSU by a score of 4-3.
 
In the match, Tech jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the match after winning the doubles point. The No. 2 doubles team of Aastha Dargude and Madalena Silva made relatively quick work of their opponents, winning 6-2. The Flight 3 doubles pairing of Melanie Griffiths and Megan Bell secured the team point for the Golden Suns with a 6-4 win. The top-flight doubles match for Daniela Baez and Lea Grinberg went unfinished.
 
In singles play, Baez got the Golden Suns started early with a dominant 6-0, 6-1 win at No. 4. That was followed by Grinberg's 6-4, 6-3 win at No. 1. NSU got their first point of the match in No. 2 singles as Vera Carvalho defeated Tech's Dargude 6-2, 7-5.
 
The next result at No. 5 singles pulled the Riverhawks within a point, 3-2, as Chiara Carnelutti beat Maria Krite in three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. The final two singles matches went three sets with at least one of those sets needing a tiebreaker as well.
 
The overall match would tie up at three-all in No. 6 singles as Maggie Holcomb came up just short, losing 7-6(5), 6-2, 6-4.
 
That turned all the attention to the No. 3 singles match between Tech's Madalena Silva and NSU's Emilia Costto. Silva had dropped the first set 5-7, but bounced back in set with a 7-5 win herself. The third and decisive set was knotted at six-all, forcing a tiebreaker. In the tiebreaker, Costto won 4-0 to take the match and give NSU the overall team victory.
 
The Golden Suns will now prepare for a non-conference match on the road at UCA on Friday, February 11. First-serve is scheduled for 10 a.m.