The Pepperdine women’s tennis team salvaged a split in its back-to-back home matches Sunday and Monday against No.-51 San Diego and No.-15 Fresno State.
The team’s first match was against conference rival San Diego. The Toreros gave little resistance to the Waves’ crushing force and Pepperdine claimed a 6-1 lead.
In doubles the game was tied following a win from the No. 49-ranked pair of sophomore Anamika Bhargava and senior Alex Liles and a loss from junior Tania Rice and freshman Danielle Thomasma.
It was up to the freshmen duo of Andrea Oates and Alexandria Walters to gain the Waves the crucial doubles point. Both players found a way to step up their games and fought back to win the match as well as the match’s first point for the Waves in a 9-7 victory against San Diego’s Maja Sujica and Tammy Kevey.
After an exciting doubles round the singles matches began. Liles started off with a dominating performance against Maja Sujica (6-0 6-2) and the rest of the lineup followed suit with wins coming from courts one through five.
“We had to beat San Diego to get a good conference ranking said Head Coach Gualberto Escudero. We started off well in doubles and then the singles matches speak for themselves. This really helps us in conference seeding.”
With a solid performance against San Diego the Waves hit the courts again on Monday to play host to Fresno State. With three key contributors still out of the lineup due to injury Pepperdine was looking for a way to keep up with the Bulldogs.
In doubles the Waves were unable to find a way to win a single match out of the three. Bhargava and Liles could not overcome the Bulldogs’ lethal pair of Melanie Gloria and Anastasia Petukhova. Bhargava and Liles sit at 13-3 on the season as doubles partners.
“The girls’ [opponents] were really good Bhargava said. We missed some of our opportunities and they didn’t.”
With an early loss the Waves looked for a way to regain the momentum. Three of the six singles matches went into tiebreaker sets but Liles was the only one to finish with a win. With her win Liles improved her singles record to 12-6 on the season.
Making her debut for the Waves this season on court six was junior Marigrace Marshall. Although she lost to Bruna Paes (6-1 6-0) it was good for the Waves to test their depth.
“I was so excited to play in my first match Marshall said. I tried to give it everything I had. The girl I played was great. I mainly lost off my errors but I definitely learned from this experience.”
The Waves are preparing for Friday’s home battle against UC Irvine followed by another match at home on Wednesday versus Long Beach State. Both matches will start at 3 p.m.