DANVILLE, Va. – Clinching the doubles point early on, Averett University women's tennis dropped four close consecutive singles matches to fall against visitors Shaw University at the Averett Tennis Courts on Wednesday afternoon.
Averett (4-3) battled through a gauntlet of doubles matches, with Elisa Batterman and
Dilara Sultanova convincingly beating Eni Anic and Camilla Angiani-Mortino 6-3 to kick off action at the No. 3 spot.
Keira Gunning and
Siddhi Khandelwal came close to getting the doubles point, but fell after going the distance to Shaw's (3-3) Anja Antonijevic and Marija Ristanovic, 7-4 in the set tiebreak.
It came down to Cougars
Ravaka Ramanantoanina and
Brenda Poulakidas, and they secured the all-important first point, taking their own set tiebreak, 9-7 in a thriller.
The visiting Bears then took four straight singles matches, winning the required amount of matches later on. Khandelwal and reigning CIAA Player of the Week Serena Teluwo went the full three sets, the latter two being tiebreaks. Teluwo came out victorious, however, in one of the closest matches that an Averett player has played this spring.
The Cougars roll back into ODAC contests this Sunday, March 16, heading to uptown Salem to take on Roanoke College. Start time, pending weather, is set for 1 p.m.
