Murray State University Athletics
Murray State
Austin Peay
Racers Improve to 4-0 in OVC with Win at APSU
3/25/2014 8:42:00 PM | Women's Tennis
In a rare midweek matinee, Murray State's women's tennis team put their 3-0 conference record on the line at Austin Peay, March 25. Despite the match being their sixth in nine days, the Racers showed no signs of fatigue, blanking the Governors, 7-0. MSU now stands a season-best five games over .500 at 9-4, and are a perfect 4-0 in the OVC.
The match started with the doubles competition where the tandems Eleonore and Verginie Tchakarova and Andrea Eskauriatza and Erin Patton picked up the point for MSU. The Tchakarova's defeated Andra Cornea and Ornella Di Salvo, who were previously unbeaten in conference play, 8-3 at first doubles. Eskauriatza and Patton were winners on court two, 8-2, over Jovana Karac and Isabella Jovanovic.
Carla Suga and Megan Blue were ahead at No. 3 doubles, 5-4, but the match went unfinished with the point having already been decided.
Suga did play in the most thrilling singles match of the afternoon, however. She went down a set to Cornea at the No. 2 position, but rallied back to win the second set 6-4 and the tiebreaker 10-4.
Apart from Suga, the Racers had little trouble with the Govs, winning the other five contests by relatively large margins. Eskauriatza put away Di Salvo at first singles 6-3, 6-2. Verginie and Eleonore Tchakarova were winners at fifth and third singles respectively. All three share the team lead with 16 singles wins this season; Verginie won the race to ten, and leads the team in dual match wins.
Blue and Patton completed the sweep with wins at the fourth and sixth draws, respectively.
MSU will now go three straight days without competition for the first time since St. Patrick's Day. The Racers will come back home for two matches this weekend against SIU Edwardsville (March 29) and Eastern Illinois (March 30).
