WILMINGTON, DE – Looking to lock up a NCAA Women's Tennis Tournament At-Large Bid, the Queens College women's tennis team completed a 3-1 comeback to defeat the #36 Wilmington University Wildcats 4-3 Saturday afternoon at Delcastle Tennis Center.
In the latest DII Women's ITA Collegiate Tennis National Team rankings, the Knights came into the match at #55, while staying firm at #4 in the NCAA East Regional rankings while the Wildcats came into the match as the #36 nationally ranked and the #1 team in the region
With the win, the Knights improved to 11-7 overall, while the Wildcats moved to 16-3 on the season.
Doubles Competition
The Wildcats struck first as the Knights' #1 doubles junior duo of
Maja Makal (Bialystok, Poland) / Gabriela Sciarrotta (Woodmere, N.Y) would fall to the nationally ranked #29 doubles duo of Jess Purdy/Neus Ramos Moreno to the score of 6-0.
The home side would clinch the points as the #3 doubles duo of freshman
Caroline Hany-Fawzy (Alexandria, Egypt) / sophomore
Mariana Ling (Orlando, Fla) fell to Larize Nel/Fenna Swaan to the score of 6-1.
The #2 doubles match between the doubles duo of senior
Nathalie Ulander (Stockholm, Sweden) / junior
Lilly Schmidt (Montabaur, Germany) against Valentina Ivankovic/Marley Trifunovic went unfinished with the Knights duo of 5-2.
Singles Competition
The Wildcats extended their advantage to 2-0 as Makal fell at #1 singles to Moreno to 6-4, 6-1.
The Knights would come back to trim the deficit 2-1 as Fawzy defeated Gomar to the score of 6-0, 6-1 at #3 singles.
But Queens would be put into a 3-1 hole as Sciarrotta fell at #4 singles to Ivankovic in a three-set thriller as Ivankovic completed a first set loss of 7-5 to Sciarrotta to win 6-0, 6-2 putting the home side win away from clinching the match.
But the Knights were not going away without a fight as Ulander picked up a thrilling victory at #2 singles as she defeated Purdy in a first victory in tiebreaker fashion to the score of 7-6
(7-4), before closing the second set with a 6-2 victory to bring the Knights within 3-2 scoreline.
Schmidt would tie the match 3-3 with a three-set victory at #5 singles as she battled back from a 6-0 first set loss to Trifunovic before winning the last two sets to the score of 6-4, 6-3 shifting attention to the final match at #6 singles.
With all eyes on #6 singles, junior
Chole Certain (Obernai, France) won the first set 6-4 against Nel before falling 7-5 in the second set. With the match tied and a crucial regional win up for grabs, Certain would trail 4-0 in the third before the France native battled back to pick up the third set victory to the score of 7-5 and giving the Knights a 4-3 victory Saturday afternoon.
UP NEXT: Head coach
Alan Nagel and the Knights now will await their fate on Selection Sunday to come in next week. More details to follow later this week.
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