ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – The Arkansas Tech women's tennis team opened up conference play on the road at Henderson State on Tuesday afternoon and suffered a heartbreaking 4-3 defeat in a match that came down to the wire.
Henderson State got out to a 1-0 lead in the match as they claimed the doubles point with wins at flight two and three. The Golden Suns' top doubles pairing of
Rebecca Arnold and
Elis Gergel would pull off an upset of the Reddies' top pairing of Emilia Nowak and Jordan Parker, 6-3. That pairing came into the match nationally-ranked No. 38.
In singles action, Henderson picked up a win at No. 2 singles to go up 2-0 in the match. Gergel got the Golden Suns on the board with a convincing 6-3, 6-1 win at the top flight. The Reddies then moved within clinch range with a win at No. 4 singles.
The Golden Suns battled back to even the match at three-all with wins at flights three and six.
Lucia Perez secured the win at No. 3, 6-2, 6-4 while
Nayara Alvarez won 6-4, 6-2 in her match.
Knotted at three, all eyes turned to the final singles match yet to be decided at No. 5.
Natalya Montoya would win the first set, 6-4, but narrowly fell in the second set on a tiebreaker, 6-7 (4). She was later upended in the decisive tiebreaker, 1-6.
The Golden Suns will now prepare for three-straight conference matches at home, starting first with a Friday morning match against Southeastern Oklahoma.
