Staying with the women

Florida got their first conference win of the year with a 4-3 victory over #9 Texas. Alicia Dudeney+ at No 1 and Talia Nelsen-Gatenby+ at No 2 both won doubles to give Florida the doubles point.

Talia at No 3 singles, unfortunately was no match for her ranked opponent and lost quickly to #30 Carmen Herea 1 & 2. It might be time to play her down a position to give her time to settle and gain some confidence. Alicia at No 2 got an impressive win over #69 Eszter Meri (UT) 6-2, 6-4. Keep making these impressive performances and getting the ranking wins and we'll hopefully see her in the singles rankings before not to long. This win gives Florida a big boost in their team ranking going from 61 to a currently projected 35, lots of matches still to be played this weekend wil obviously change that. Texas A&M are Sunday's visitors to Gainesville, Florida. Florida are treading a tightrope with only 6 fit players, with 1 player seemingly having left the programme in the last month (removed from their website anyway) and another with a long term injury.

D1. Dudeney/Spee (UF) def. Kempenaers-Pocz/Drugdova (UT), 6-3
D2: Neilson-Gatenby/Oliveras (UF) def. Herea/Meri (UT), 7-5
S2: Alicia Dudeney (UF) def. #69 Eszter Meri (UT) 6-2, 6-4
S3: #30 Carmen Herea (UT) def. Talia Neilson-Gatenby (UF) 6-1, 6-2

Still without a full strength line up, #2 Virginia got a 4-1 victory over #35 Wake Forest. Virginia shuffled their doubles around with Isabelle moving to No 3 to partner Ziodato, with Meggie Zavarro (yes, Emma's sister before you ask) moving to No 1 to partner Chervinsky. The move was successful for Isabelle as she got her first college doubles win, 6-2. Virginia also won No 2 doubles to take the doubles point.

Isabelle played singles 4, where she twice came from a break down to win the 1st set in a tie-break. In the 2nd she took a *5-2 lead and with Virginia up 3-1 overall, it was a race to the finish between her and her fellow freshman Genis Salas on court 5. Isabelle was eager to get going to get the much needed win, but her opponent kept Isabelle waiting before each of the points played in that game. This is all a long way of saying court 5 got the win and Isabelle was left unfinished. She can claim it as a win even though it doesn't go down in the record books or rankings as one. She could have done with the win as she is winless since her superb performance at the National Indoors a month ago with 1 loss and 4 unfinished since her last win. Virginia now head over to Raleigh, NC to face NC State on Sunday.

D3. Sara Ziodato/Isabelle Lacy (VA) def. Brianna Baldi/Anna Zhang (WFU) 6-2
S4. Sankavi Gownder (WFU) vs. #104 Isabelle Lacy (VA) 6-7 (4-7), 2-5, unfinished

Another team with injury problems are San Diego. Like their male counterparts the women are without their No 1, who I saw wearing a protective boot on socials last week. Yesterday Hannah Read played doubles (No 1) but was missing from singles. With only 7 players on their roster they forfeited No 6 singles and with everybody playing up 1 or 2 spots lost 4-0 to San Diego State who claimed their 2nd big scalp in 2 weeks after their shock win over UCLA last week. USD should've had another freshman, a Japanese player, this year but she isn't on their roster and has not played ITFs since August so whether she's decommitted or deferred due to injury I don't know.

-- Edited by Lambda on Saturday 8th of March 2025 08:07:45 AM