This time of year is about surviving and advance, and the Ole Miss women’s tennis team did that Saturday morning, holding off a tough William & Mary team 4-1 in the first round of the NCAA Championships to advance to the second round at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center.
The Rebels will meet the No. 2 overall seed, North Carolina, Sunday at 2 p.m. CT for a berth in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in Athens, Georgia.
The match had to be moved indoors due to inclement weather. The Rebels won an exciting doubles point and then picked up a straight set win from Tea Jandric at No. 5 singles, a come from behind win at No. 1 singles from Arianne Hartono and the clincher in straight sets from freshman Alexa Bortles at No. 6 singles.
All three doubles were extremely close with No. 21 ranked Hartono and Bortles winning 7-5 on court one and William & Mary closing out a 7-5 win on court two. All eyes then turned to court three where Anna Vrbenska and Jandric battled the Tribe’s Natalia Perry and Cecily Wuenscher in a tiebreaker. William & Mary got off to a 2-0 lead and led 3-2, before Vrbenska and Jandric reeled off five straight points to take it 7-6(3) and clinch the 1-0 lead for the Rebels.
William & Mary came out and took four first sets in singles to steal some momentum back. Jandric gave the Rebels a 2-0 lead when she downed Olivia Thaler 6-2, 6-0 at No. 5 singles.
The Tribe answered with a straight set win on court three to pull within 2-1, but the Rebels had already started coming back in some second sets.
Hartono got off to a slow start at No. 1 singles against W&M’s Marie Faure dropping the first set 6-3, but the All-American regrouped and won the second set 6-0. In the decisive set, Hartono went up 3-0 and closed strong for 6-2 to hand the Rebels a 3-1 lead.
Moments later, Bortles delivered the final knockout punch, finishing off a 6-4, 6-3 win against Wuenscher at No. 6 singles to send the Rebels on to the second round.
Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports
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