Women's Tennis Season Ends in MW Opening Round

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico fought the good fight, but UNM couldn’t quite recover after nearly stealing the doubles point, falling 4-1 to No. 8 seeded Nevada in the opening round of the Mountain West Tournament in Tucson, Arizona.  UNM’s season ends with an 11-11 record.  Nevada advances to face No. 65 Fresno State on Thursday.

UNM nearly opened the match by stealing the doubles point.  UNM won at No. 1 doubles as Polly Chen and Myu Kagayama won handily 6-1, but after Sarah O’Connor served UNM back to 4-4 at No. 2 doubles, she and Hsuan Huang were broken by Mariana Campino and Selina Turulja for a 6-4 Nevada win.  That left it to No. 3 doubles, which went to a tiebreak.  Nevada’s pairing of Gabriella Charalampidi and Milka Genkova took a 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker, giving them three match points.  Taborga served twice, netting two points.  First she forced Nevada into a simple shot at the net that Toriumi squared away to make it 6-4.  Taborga aced to make it 6-5, and UNM stavedoff a third match point when Nevada double faulted.

That run ended though as UNM hit long twice to give the doubles point to Nevada.  The Wolf Pack (9-10) took a 3-0 lead with a 6-2, 6-4 win by Charalampidi over Taborga at No. 6 and a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 2 by Campino over O’Connor.  UNM got one back when Kageyama won her 22nd match of the year, this 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 over Cristina Moll Alles.  UNM was threatening to make it 3-2 as Hsuan Huang was up 6-2, 6-5, missing on the match when her deuce point at 5-4 went into the net.

Nevada clinched it with a 7-5, 6-2 win at No. 5 by Turulja over Albie Huang.  Polly Chen was trailing 6-3, 5-4 at the clinch.