Kansas women’s tennis lost a close match to Arkansas, 4-3, on Sunday at the Billingsley Tennis Center in Fayetteville. With this result, Kansas moves to a 3-4 record for the season while Arkansas improves to 7-1.
“Losing tough matches hurts, and today hurts,” said Kansas head coach Todd Chapman. “What we choose to do from here will define what the next section of our season looks like. We have to embrace what is hard and choose to respond in a way that gives us a chance to be successful moving forward.”
Kansas started strong by winning the doubles point. On court two, Heike Janse van Vuuren and Meg McCarty, ranked No. 73 nationally, secured their first win of the season with a 6-2 victory over Jimena Gomez Alonso and Brooke Schafer. The doubles point was clinched when Kyoka Kubo and Meriem Ben Ezzedine defeated Arina Babenko and Alexan Panagiotidou 7-5 on court three.
Yerkezhan Arystanbekova and Anna Putilina were defeated by No. 27 Carolina Gomez Alonso and Anet Koskel, 6-2, on court one.
In singles play, Kansas took two matches to go ahead 3-2 but ultimately lost four singles contests as Arkansas claimed the overall win. Van Vuuren beat Schafer in straight sets (6-4, 6-3) on court two. Nahyeong Cho also won her match against Babenko (7-5, 6-3) on court five.
Arkansas secured victories in singles on courts one, three, four and six. No. 22 C. Gomez Alonso overcame No. 25 Kubo (7(9)-6(7), 6-3) on court one; Koskel came back to defeat Arystanbekova (2-6, 6-2, 6-2); Panagiotidou beat McCarty (6-3, 6-3); J. Gomez Alonso won against Putilina (6-3, 5-7, 6-1).
Kansas will return home for its next matches against Minnesota on Friday, February 20 at the Jayhawk Tennis Center and Old Dominion on Sunday, February 22.
