A win is a win. But sometimes, they can be ugly.
San Diego State’s women’s tennis team found that out last Fridaywith a 4-3 win against UC Irvine. The victory extended the Aztecs’home-winning streak to 10 matches, but the match was a little tooclose for comfort.
“It should not have been that close,” SDSU head coach PeterMattera said. “I did not think we played very well at all. Hopefully,this will be our wake-up call.”
The No. 42 Aztecs (5-2) started it off, as they have so many othermatches this season, by winning the doubles point. The Red and Blacklost at court one but got wins from the other two positions. All theyneeded after that was a win at three of the six singles matches.
Anteaters senior Jonni Seymour made quick work of junior SylviaTornier at the No.1 singles position 6-0, 6-2, and showed why she isranked No. 61 in the nation. Despite that loss, SDSU looked to be incontrol as the other five singles players all won their first set.
Irvine, however, would not go down quietly.
“We played great first sets and then kind of took holidays,”Mattera said. “Irvine picked it up a notch. I give them a lot ofcredit. They came after us after we showed a sign of weakness.”
The Anteaters battled back to win the second set on four of thecourts and actually won on courts three and six. Senior LindseyHedberg found her first set form and beat her opponent at the No. 2spot and senior Katey Becker got a straight-sets win at the No. 5position.
“They definitely came out and gave us a little bit of a run forour money,” Hedberg said. “But I think all of us played very well. Wekept our heads on straight, and when it got close, we just turned onour game.”
At the No. 4 position, Aztecs junior Katalina Romero was in aheated contest against freshman Anna Bentzer. Romero was behind mostof the time during her first set but surged at the end to win 7-6.She then fell behind again in the second set but could not come backand lost 4-6, forcing a tie-breaking third set.
It turned out that the third set would decide which school wouldwalk away a winner.
Romero came out charging right from the start. She was movingtoward the net and looked like a player possessed. She appeareddetermined not to lose the match for SDSU.
“I thought in the beginning, I was a little bit conservative,”Romero said. “But at the end, when all the pressure was on, I think Iplayed really good and was aggressive when I needed to be.”
Romero easily won the third set 6-2 and clinched the all-too-closewin for the Aztecs.
The match took a grueling four hours to complete.
The Aztecs head out on the road for their toughest road trip ofthe season where they will play Stanford and UCLA, which both rank inthe top 10 in the nation.
