SALT LAKE CITY – The University of Denver women's tennis team (3-2) wrapped up its three-match road trip with a 5-2 loss at Utah on Friday.
 
Doubles:
Denver dropped the doubles point but captured the first match to finish when fifth-year student Taylor Melville and freshman Claudia Martinez de Velasco took a 6-3 win in No. 2 doubles. The DU team broke right out of the gate and responded again after Utah's team of Samantha Horwood/Katya Townsend evened in up at 3-3, breaking once more to go up 5-3 and eventually close it out.
 
Both of the remaining doubles matches ended with 6-4 wins for Utah.
 
Singles:
Melville captured DU's first point of the day, trading breaks late the set before breaking for a second time to take a 7-5 win in the first set. The second set was tight with neither player getting a edge and ultimately finding themselves in an extended tiebreak that Melville won, 12-10.
 
Senior Britt Pursell extended her singles win streak to four and started by rattling off six straight games to win the first set after going down 0-3 early. Similarly, she fought back after losing the first three games of the second set and evened things up until conceding a late break to Utah's Kalia Barksdale. She flipped the script for the third set, taking the 3-0 lead this time and breaking again late for the win.
 
Sophomore Andrea Burguete Beltran forced a third set in No. 2 singles after losing the first set but dropped the match. Freshman Anastasia Simonov made her appearance in singles for the first time since Denver's first dual of the season and won the first set but ended up losing the match in a third set.
 
Up Next:
DU returns home for the first of five straight home matches when it hosts Brown on Sunday, February 19, at 2 p.m. MT at Denver Tennis Park.
 
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