ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 16 UCF women's tennis team completed two matches on Sunday, finishing their match against UC Santa Barbara with a 4-1 win before sweeping Nebraska 4-0. The pair of victories gives the Knights' a four match winning streak.
MATCH ONE
UCF and UC Santa Barbara split up the singles and doubles portion of their match over two calendar days. Doubles was played Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. while the match was completed on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. with the completion of singles.
The Knights got out to a fast start in doubles against UC Santa Barbara, taking sizeable leads on two of the three courts. No. 32 Ksenia Kuznetsova and Valeriya Zeleva were the first to finish, cruising to a 6-0 win over Amit Lev Ari and Lise Sentenac on court three. UCF sealed the doubles point on court two as No. 5 Rebeka Stolmar and Marie Mattel defeated Shakhoza Khatamova and Tiffany Lagarde with a score of 6-2. Court one went unfinished with Nadja Bay Christians and Evgeniya Levashova trailing Dominika Paterova and Anastasia Goncharova, the score being 3-4.
The singles segment, which started at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, saw the Knights split all first sets with the Gauchos. UCSB earned the first point of singles, winning on court four as Paterova defeated No. 61 Mattel 6-1, 6-3.
UCF brought the heat deep into the second stanza of things as Kuznetsova tallied the first singles point for the Knights, beating Goncharova 6-0, 6-4 on court five. The Knights pulled closer to the clincher as Levashova won 6-4, 6-1 versus Lev Ari on court one.
For the second straight match, Bay Christians clinched the match for the Black and Gold winning a hard fought 6-3, 6-4 battle on court three, edging UCSB's Lagarde.
Two courts went unfinished as Zeleva was trailing Voldko 6-7 (1-7), 3-4 on and Sharma was leading 5-7, 6-0, 2-0 against Sentenac.
MATCH TWO
The Knights faced the Nebraska Huskers in match number two of the day, starting at 12:30 p.m., roughly two hours after the completion of the UC Santa Barbara match.
The Black and Gold started off doubles smoothly, with a win on court three by No. 32 Kuznetsova and Zeleva against Chloe Kuckelman and Ellie Kuckelman by a score 6-3. Levashova and Bay Christians clinched the doubles point on court one by a count of 6-4. Court two went unfinished with No. 5 Mattel and Stolmar trailing Isabel Adrover Gallego and Clarie Reifeis 4-5.
The singles portion of the match started off with the Knights winning five out of the six first sets.
No. 61 Mattel was the first to grab a singles point as she was victorious over C Kuckelman on court four, winning the second set with ease in a 6-3, 6-0 decision.
No. 65 Zeleva tacked on another singles victory for UCF with her 6-3, 6-4 win over Reifeis at the top singles spot in the lineup. Zeleva moves to 5-1 on the dual match season with the victory, including a 2-0 mark at No. 1 singles.
The Knights secured their second sweep of the season as Levashova defeated Novak at singles No. 2 in a tight 6-4, 6-4 contest. It was the first time that Levashova has clinched a match. She moves to 6-0 this season, with a 4-0 mark at the top singles spot.
Today marked the first time in program history that the Knights faced UC Santa Barbara and Nebraska. UCF moved to 2-3 all-time against TCU with their win on Friday.
UP NEXT
The Knights will host Ole Miss at 5 p.m. on Feb. 21 at the UCF Collegiate Tennis Center at the USTA National Campus. UCF is 1-1 all-time against the Rebels.
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