FORT WORTH, Texas – The No. 18 UCF women's tennis team earned their seventh straight victory as they defeated TCU by a count of 5-1 on the road Thursday afternoon.
"I thought the team played really well today," said head coach Bryan Koniecko. "They played great doubles today, especially on courts two and three to get a good start in singles. Credit to TCU, they came out of doubles and played really well early in singles. I thought we settled down after that, flipped the score on a few of them and took five first sets."
The Knights charged out of the gates in doubles, taking big leads across all courts to begin the match. No. 60 Ksenia Kuznetsova and Valeriya Zeleva kept their hot streak going, winning 6-0 over Stevie Kennedy and Margaret Polk on court two. The tandem remains perfect on the season as they're 7-0 when playing together. UCF secured the doubles point on court three where Evgeniya Levashova and Nadja Bay Christians coasted to a 6-2 win over Addy Guevara and Marie Norris. Court one went unfinished as No. 6 Rebeka Stolmar and Marie Mattel were trailing Isabel Pascual and Mercedes Aristegui 4-3.
TCU started out strong in singles after dropping the doubles point. The Horned Frogs jumped in front early and led in four of six of the first sets. The Knights were able to flip the script and regain their momentum, taking five of six first frames.
The only first set TCU collected turned into a point as Aristegui was the first to win a singles match on the afternoon, beating No. 42 Stolmar 6-4, 6-0.
It was all UCF from that point on as the Knights grabbed two singles points almost simultaneously. No. 72 Mattel earned a victory on court five, besting Guevara 6-2, 6-3. Jaleesa Leslie was triumphant in her match moments later, taking down Polk 6-1, 7-5. Leslie has won six straight matches and is a perfect 5-0 at the No. 6 singles position.
Kuznetsova earned the clinching point for the Black and Gold as she cruised to a 6-3, 6-0 win on court three over Kennedy. She has won five consecutive matches now and is a combined 4-0 at the Nos. 4 and 5 positions.
At the time of the clincher, it was decided that court one could finish their match while court four went unfinished.
Court one was a ranked matchup between No. 67 Zeleva and No. 68 Norris. Zeleva claimed the first set but saw Norris take the second stanza. With the team match already decided, a 10 points super tiebreaker was used to determine the third set. Zeleva dropped the first point of the third frame and took control after that, powering her way to a 6-4, 3-6, 10-3 win.
"Really proud of Lera to get the win at No. 1 singles against a great player," said Koniecko. "She's been doing great and deserves a great win there."
Court four's unfinished matchup was between Bay Christians and Pascual. Bay Christians fought to win a tough first set in a tiebreaker by a count of 7-6 (8-6) and led the second set 2-1.
The Black and Gold are cruising, as they've pieced together seven straight victories, outscoring their opponents 38-5 over that stretch. UCF has won three straight matches over Power 6 opponents and have collected a total of four total victories in that department this season.
The Knights even up the all-time series against the Horned Frogs at 3-3. UCF has beaten TCU twice in a row now, beating them by a combined score of 9-2.
UP NEXT
UCF will play one of their biggest matches under coach Koniecko on Saturday as they visit No. 2 Texas at 1 p.m. ET. The Knights have not faced a top five opponent in the Koniecko era and will get a chance to go 1-0 in that category this weekend. This will be the first meeting between UCF and Texas.
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