The Wyoming Cowgirl tennis team came up short last week, losing by a score of 4-3 against both the Fresno State Bulldogs and the Nevada Wolf Pack in Fresno, Calif.
The losses drop the Cowgirls to 8-9 overall and 2-2 in Mountain West play this spring.
It was a battle in doubles action for all three matches against the Bulldogs, but the 60th ranked team would come out on top with the point. Lady Bulldog players Olga Kirpicheva and Aishwarya Agrawal opened up with an 8-5 victory against Cowgirls Jessica Parizher and Silviya Zhelyazkova. The Cowgirls tied up the score when Veronica Popovici and Simona Synkova defeated Melissa McQueen and Rana Sherif Ahmed, 8-4. In the final doubles match, Alexandra Kovacs and Sasa Nemcova were ahead 6-5, but could not hold on as Bianca Modoc and Sophie Watts won the last three sets to take the match, 8-6.
In singles action, it went down to the final match, but the Bulldogs came away with the victory. Sophie Watts defeated Nemcova, 6-1, 6-2, to put the Bulldogs in the lead 2-0, while Kovacs earned Wyoming’s first point with her win, 6-4, 6-4, over McQueen. At the number two spot Agrawal won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, against Synkova.
The Cowgirls evened up the score at three all as Parizher beat Modoc, 6-3, 6-4, and Zhelyazkova won 6-4, 6-2, against Anneka Watts. The final match-up was at the number one position with Rana Sherif Ahmed and Veronica Popovici squaring off. Sherif Ahmed took set one, 7-6 (7-4), to start things off, but Popovici won set two, 6-2. Sherif Ahmed went on to win the match.
Friday, in the battle against Nevada in doubles play, the Cowgirls fell short against the Wolf Pack. Nevada won two of three matches to earn the first point of the day. The only team to come away with a victory was Parizher and Zhelyazkova who defeated Shelia Smiley and Caroline Konigsfeldt, 8-5. Juliete Legendre and Sophie Stevens defeated Kovacs and Nemcova, 8-6, while the number one team of Popovici and Synkova fell 8-5 to Emma Verberne and Michelle Okhremchuk.
The Cowgirls will play again this weekend against the Boise State Broncos Saturday and the New Mexico Lobos Sunday. Both matches will be played in Colorado Springs, Colo.
