ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 9 nationally seeded UCF women's tennis team is headed to its second straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 after it's 4-1 win over No. 23 Miami in the second round on Saturday evening.
"Kind of at a loss for words. We obviously wanted this one so badly," said head coach Bryan Koniecko. "You kind of have that extra pressure of wanting to play so badly in the Round of 16, especially when you're the host site. With all of that in consideration and in losing the doubles point, it just shows how much grit from our team on how badly they wanted to be in the next round and keep pushing and keep finding another level for this team. I'm just so proud of them, we obviously didn't play doubles the way we wanted to but to come out with such strong starts and win six first sets is incredible."
The match got off to a less than ideal start for the Knights as they fell behind quickly on two of three courts in the doubles segment. The Hurricanes rode the wave of early momentum to a win on court three as Daevenia Achong and Florencia Urrutia beat Rebeka Stolmar and Nandini Sharma 6-1. Miami secured the doubles point on court one as No. 22 Estella Perez-Somarriba and Isabella Pfennig topped Valeriya Zeleva and Ksenia Kuznetsova 6-2.
The scoreboard was fairly even halfway through the first set as the Knights led on three courts and were tied on another, with all matches still fairly close.
Somewhere around the midway point of those first frames, a switch flipped as UCF found a surge of energy and momentum, carrying them to six first set victories.
The Black and Gold wasted little time in converting their momentum into points. Freshman sensation Jaleesa Leslie cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Diana Khodan on court five to earn the first singles point of the match. She remains in the team lead in wins as she improves to 15-4 on her rookie campaign.
Kuznetsova put the Knights ahead with her 13th victory of the season on court four, coming back from 2-1 down in her first set to win 6-3, 6-1 over Urrutia.
Evgeniya Levashova pulled UCF to within one of the clincher as she dismantled Achong in the first set on court three before ultimately winning her third straight match by a count of 6-0, 6-3.
The clinching match came from the Knights' captain as No. 38 Stolmar beat No. 10 Pfennig 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) for her third victory over a ranked opponent this season. Stolmar was mobbed by her teammates after the winning point as they celebrated their Sweet 16 berth.
"It's just fitting," said Koniecko. "Rebeka has been a rock for us for four years and to have it come to her in a tiebreaker, there's nobody else you'd want the team to enjoy that moment with. To go out there against the 10th player in the county with that kind of effort just speaks to Rebeka and the fight that she has and how much care she has for UCF."
Two courts went unfinished on the evening. Court one saw No. 22 Zeleva matched up with the top singles player in the nation and reigning singles champion No. 1 Perez-Somarriba. The two broke each other constantly throughout the match and saw their match go unfinished with a scoreline of 6-4, 2-6, 1-1. Sharma's match on court six went unfinished as well as she came back from a 3-1 deficit in her first frame against Maya Tahan to win the set 7-5; Tahan was leading 5-3 in the second.
UCF had never beat the Hurricanes prior to this season, a year in which they've been victorious over them twice. The Black and Gold bested Miami 4-0 earlier this season at the indoor venue at the USTA National Campus. The last time these two teams met before the 2021 campaign was in the 2018 NCAA Tournament were the Hurricanes topped UCF 4-3 in the second round.
Saturday's victory over Miami punches the Knights' ticket to the Sweet 16 for the second time in as many full seasons. UCF swept Alabama in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament before beating No. 11 nationally seeded FSU on their home courts by a score of 4-1. The Black and Gold's season came to an end at the hands of No. 5 nationally seeded Pepperdine by a tally of 4-2.
The Knights would be the first UCF team to advance to the quarterfinals in an NCAA Tournament in a decade if they're able to make their way through the third round. The last Black and Gold team to reach the Elite 8 was UCF women's soccer who defeated an ACC opponent, North Carolina, in penalty kicks in 2011.
UP NEXT
The Knights will face No. 18 Duke on Sunday at 7 p.m. at the UCF Collegiate Tennis Center at the USTA National Campus. Every men's and women's match from the Sweet 16 will be hosted in UCF's house as predetermined by the NCAA.
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