AZUSA, Calif. – The No. 39-ranked Arkansas Tech tennis team played a ranked opponent on their home court on Thursday as they took on No. 24-ranked Azusa Pacific. In match that was played to clinch, Tech came out on the short end, 4-0.
Doubles play started the match and after dropping No. 1 doubles, 1-6, to the No. 6-ranked doubles team in DII, the Golden Suns (7-5) evened things up with a 6-1 win by
Madalena Amil and
Melanie Griffiths at No. 3. The doubles point for the match ultimately went to the Cougars (13-4) as they won at No. 2 doubles 6-3.
In singles action, the first match to complete was the top-flight. Facing the No. 4-ranked singles player in DII, Tech's
Lea Grinberg battled, but ultimately lost 0-6, 1-6. The Cougars then secured the third point of the match with a 6-0, 6-0 win at No. 2 singles.
Tight battles across the four remaining singles match were in full throat, but at 6-3, 6-4 win at No. 6 singles by Azusa Pacific clinched the match and ended things altogether.
At the time of the match being stopped by clinch, The Golden Suns were in good shape at No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 singles. At No. 3 singles,
Aastha Dargude was close to forcing a tiebreaking third set after losing the opening set 0-6.
Amil was in the best position at No. 4 singles as she won the first set 7-5 and was up 4-3 in set two at the time of the match stoppage.
At No. 5,
Sofia Beggiatto was in the middle of a set one tiebreaker and was down 7-2.
The Golden Suns will be right back on the courts on Friday against a ranked opponent as they will face No. 40-ranked Concordia University Irvine. The match is scheduled for a 2 p.m. CDT start.
