No. 34 Oklahoma State Edges No. 40 Baylor Women's Tennis in League Opener

[Ingram, Brent]

BAYLOR ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS – March 10, 2023

No. 34 Oklahoma State Edges No. 40 Baylor WT in League Opener
Bears get Three Singles Wins in 4-3 Loss

For more information contact: Shelby Hild (254.405.7591; Shelby_hild at baylor.edu<mailto:Shelby_hild at baylor.edu>)



WACO, Texas -- Isabella Harvison improved to 10-3 in singles with a court 1 winner but No. 34 Oklahoma State rode the doubles point to a narrow 4-3 win over No. 40 Baylor women’s tennis, in the league opener for both teams, on a gorgeous Friday night at the Hurd Tennis Center.



No. 40 Baylor (8-7, 0-1 Big 12 Conference) couldn’t overcome the loss in doubles to open the match, rallying back to claim three of six singles courts vs. No. 34 Oklahoma State (8-4, 1-0 Big 12).



Harvison, Daniella Dimitrova and Alina Shcherbinina each earned singles wins but the Bears fell in three sets on courts 3 and 5 and a two-set loss on court 2 vs. a ranked foe.



THE RUNDOWN

The doubles point was won by Oklahoma State, who claimed a 6-3 win on court 1, with Anita Sahdiieva and Harvison falling to the No. 31 ranked duo of Ayumi Miyamoto and Raquel Gonzalez. On court 3, Liubov Kostenko and Brooke Thompson fell, 6-4, to Martina Zerulo and Lucia Peyre.



The Bears earned a 6-3 winner on court 2, behind Shcherbinina and Paula Barañano, with the double point coming down to court 3.



Harvison – a senior transfer from Alabama who is ranked No. 92 in singles – rallied in the third set on court 1 to earn the first point of the match for the Bears, a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 result.



OSU claimed a court 2 win behind No. 109 Alana Wolfberg over Kostenko, 7-6, 6-3.



The Cowboys went up 3-1 after a court 3 singles winner of Sofia Rojas over Barañano, 6-4, 2-6, 7-5.



Immediately after the court 3 setback, the Bears earned their second point of the match, a court 4 winner from Shcherbinina over Lucia Peyre, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. Shcherbinina, sophomore and a native of Moscow, Russia, improved to 12-4 overall and 8-3 in the spring season in singles. She has gone 6-2 over her last 10 matches.



With OSU leading 3-2, the match came down to two courts, court 5, featuring Sahdiieva vs. Ayumi Miyamoto and court 6, with Dimitrova facing off with Raquel Gonzalez, both three-set thrillers.



Sahdiieva and Miyamoto were locked in a 5-5 tie late in the third set but Miyamoto was able to fight off the BU rally to clinch the match with a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 winner.



Down early in the third set, Dimitrova rallied to take a 4-3 lead and owned a 5-4 margin when the match was clinched by virtue of the court 5 result. Dimitrova finished off the win with a 7-6, 1-6, 6-4 result for the 4-3 final score. It snapped an eight-match losing streak in singles for the freshman, who used the gutsy three-set winner to improve to 5-9 overall and 2-9 in the spring.



HIGHLIGHTS

A native of Cardiff by the Sea, Calif., Harvison turned in a three-set winner on court 1, improving to 10-3 in singles in the spring, including a 3-1 mark on court 1. Including the fall tournament season, Harvison owns a team-leading 13-4 mark in singles.



WHAT’S NEXT

The opening weekend of Big 12 play will continue on Sunday as the Bears play host to No. 20 Oklahoma (9-6, 0-1 Big 12) at 1 p.m. at the Hurd Tennis Center. The Sooners posted a 5-2 win at No. 10 Texas on Friday afternoon in Austin.



- BaylorBears<http://www.BaylorBears>.com -


--
Brent Ingram | Assistant AD for Communications
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 210-845-8651

[signature_1049805336]


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230311/01536fa0/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 20339 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20230311/01536fa0/attachment-0001.png>