TUCSON, Arizona – The No. 61-ranked University of Denver women's tennis team (6-2, 0-0 Summit) fought back after going down early against No. 40 Arizona to finish with a 4-3 win in its first of three duals at Arizona's Red Blue Invite on Friday afternoon.
The host team got on the board first with a win in doubles and eventually took a 2-0 lead before Denver began its comeback. With wins on the top three singles courts, DU took a 3-2 lead. Arizona pulled level at No. 4 singles, but DU freshman
Yunfei Cai clinched the Denver win shortly afterward in a come-from-behind win at No. 6 singles.
Doubles:
Arizona took advantage of early breaks in both the Nos. 1 and 3 doubles courts to take control of the matches on its way to winning the doubles point.
For the first time since Denver's dual-season opener on January 23, senior
Claudia Martinez de Velasco returned to the lineup, joining fellow senior
Louise Wikander in No. 2 doubles. The duo surrendered a break in their first service game but leveled things at 2-2 and taken their first lead of the day for 4-3 when the match was abandoned.
Singles:
DU's rally on its way to winning the dual came despite a slow start to singles. Arizona claimed four of the six first sets, but the Pioneers refocused in their second sets to turn the tide.
Only two matches ended in two sets, starting with No. 5 singles when went to Arizona, giving the Wildcats a 2-0 overall lead. Denver senior
Zoe Adkins responded with her own win in straight sets, doing so with a bagel in the first set to kick things off. She was down 3-5 in the second set before forcing things to a tiebreaker, which she claimed, 7-3.
Fellow senior
Marley Lambert evened up things on the scoreboard at 2-2 with a comeback win at No. 2 singles. She responded to dropping the first set with a dominant 6-1 win in the second set, jumping out to 5-0 before serving it out. She traded breaks in the first half of the third set before getting a break in the 12
th game to take it, 7-5.
Wikander gave Denver its first lead of the day with her own come-from-behind win at the top of the lineup. She began the comeback by claiming 4-0 lead in the second set and stretching it to 5-2. Arizona's Martyna Ostrzygalo got one break back, but Wikander was able to close it out and force the third set. The Denver senior broke in her first return game of the final frame but ended up back on serve at 4-3. She kept fighting and grabbed another break, this time to secure the win.
The Wildcats drew level with a three-set win at No. 4 singles, but Cai completed the DU win at No. 6 singles a few minutes later. Like Lambert and Wikander, she fought back after losing the first set and started with a convincing second set, turning a 4-1 lead into a 6-2 win. She followed a similar formula in the third set, going up 4-1 and holding her serve a couple more times to seal it at 6-3.
Up Next:
The University of Denver women's tennis team continues play at the Red Blue Invite, hosted by Arizona, with the beginning of its dual against Oregon at approximately 5 p.m. MT on Friday, February 20. DU and Oregon will wrap up their match with singles at 8 a.m. MT on Saturday, February 21, before Denver takes on No. 11 Arizona State at 12:30 p.m. MT.
