WACO, Texas – The No. 27-ranked University of Denver women's tennis team (7-3, 0-0 Summit) dropped a close 4-2 battle at No. 40 Baylor on Friday.
 
DU rallied back from a 0-2 deficit early to level the match at 2-all before the Bears edged out wins in two more singles matches to take the dual.
 
Doubles:
Denver went down 0-1 after losing the doubles point to Baylor, giving up early breaks on all three courts. BU ultimately claimed consecutive wins in the Nos. 1 and 3 matches.
 
Singles:
After Baylor claimed a 2-0 lead following a win at No. 4 singles, DU began its fight back and got on the board with a win from graduate student Britt Pursell on Court 2. She began by winning the final three games in the first set before trading breaks to begin the second. She retook the break lead at 3-2 and extended it to 5-2. Her opponent got one break back, but Pursell held on for her second 6-4 set win of the day.
 
About a minute later, sophomore Claudia Martinez de Velasco drew the dual level with another straight-sets win for DU. Her No. 6 singles match followed a similar trajectory to Pursell's with the sophomore claiming the first set at 6-4 and taking breaking for the first time for 2-1 in the second. She, too, was up 5-2 but saw one break disappear, though she would hold in the final game to give Denver its second point in the dual.
 
Sophomore Alice Otis saved multiple match points late in her second set at No. 5 singles to push things to a tiebreak where she went down a minibreak but drew things even and eventually had set points, though her opponent won the final four points to put BU within a point of the win.
 
The first match to go to a third set was sophomore Louise Wikander 's on Court 3. She fought back from a set down to break quickly in the second set. She stretched the lead to 5-2 and eventually took it, 6-4, to force the decisive set. In the third set, she traded early breaks but conceded a second break midway through before ultimately losing the match and giving the dual to BU.
 
In No. 1 singles, junior Andrea Burguete Beltran took the first set in a tight tiebreaker, giving up an early minibreak and then trading set points before she sealed it on her fourth try. Baylor's Miska Kadleckova took the second set, but Beltran had just broken to up 2-1 in the third set when the dual had been decided.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver women's tennis team continues its road trip in Texas when it plays at No. 37-ranked SMU on Saturday, February 24, at 1 p.m. CT/12 p.m. MT.
 
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