CARY, N.C. – Four members of the LSU Women’s tennis team made a valiant effort during the ITA All-American Championships as the team wrapped up play at the Cary Tennis Park.
The Tigers featured athletes in the singles and doubles bracket. Firstly, Gaby Rivera put on a sound performance in singles play. In the opening prequalifying round, she battled back from a set down to defeat Drexel’s Lorie Lemongo in a three-set victory, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3. Rivera continued her momentum, advancing to the next round with a convincing straight-sets victory over Bryant University’s Natalia Vela, 6-0, 6-2. She later faced Ohio State’s Teah Chavez and won her third straight match, 7-6(3), 6-2. As a result, Gaby advanced to the qualifying round, where she narrowly fell in a marathon match to Wichita State product Xin Tong Wang, 3-6, 7-5, 4-6.
Anita Sahdiieva fell to North Carolina State’s Gabia Paskauskas in a prequalifying singles match in the third set, 1-6, 6-2, 0-6. However, Sahdiieva was able to dispatch Drew Morris (SMU) in a straight-set victory in her closing singles match, 6-1, 6-1.
Kenna Erickson was the final LSU player to feature in the prequalifying round, falling to No. 1 seed Anna Zhang of Wake Forest, 1-6, 3-6. In her final singles showing, she was unable to overcome Eileen Wang (Univ. of Pennsylvania), 3-6, 1-6.
The fourth Tiger to take part in the singles bracket was Florentine Dekkers. Starting in the qualifying round, she could not rally over Texas Carmen Andreea Herea, falling in the final set, 3-6, 6-0, 2-6. She narrowly lost to Vanderbilt’s Valeria Ray in her final singles match, 4-6, 5-7.
In the doubles bracket, LSU featured Dekkers and Rivera in the prequalifying round, who fell in a 10-point tiebreaker to Jasmine Conway and Kristina Paskauskas, 7(13)-6(11), 5-7, 4-10.
The other LSU pair, Erickson and Sadhiieva, automatically qualified in the main draw. In their first match, however, they came up short against Stanford’s Alexis Blokhina and Connie Ma, 1-6, 3-6. The duo continued to play in the consolation draw, in which they narrowly conceded their final match to Tennessee’s pair of Elza Tomase and Catherine Aulia, 6-7(5), 2-6.
For more information on the LSU women’s tennis program, follow the Tigers on Twitter @lsuwten, Instagram @LSUWTen, and Facebook.com/lsuwten.