TAMPA - The University of South Florida women's tennis team traveled to Gainesville on Monday to compete against the No. 7 Florida Gators. The Bulls fell to the Gators, 7-0.
Freshman Ecaterina Vasenina and redshirt sophomore Janette Bejlkova started out competition for the Bulls in their flight two doubles match against Lauren Embree and Anastasia Revzina. Vasenina and Bejlkova lost to Embree and Revzina, 8-3.
Junior Natalia Guevara and senior Allyn Muller continued doubles competition for the Bulls on Monday in their flight three doubles match against Carolina Hitimana and Joanna Mather. Hitimana and Mather downed Muller and Guevara, 8-4, which gave Florida the 1-0 lead heading into singles competition.
Senior Melissa Koning and junior Irene Rehberger, who are ranked No. 8 in the ITA doubles rankings, closed out doubles competition for the Bulls with their flight one doubles match against No. 26 Allie Will and Marrit Boonstra. Despite keeping things close Koning and Rehberger fell to Will and Boonstra, 8-5.
Mueller started out singles competition for the Bulls in her flight five singles match against Hitimana. Mueller lost to Hitimana in two sets, 6-1, 6-1.
No. 52 Vasenina continued singles competition for USF in her flight two singles match against No. 13 Will. Will downed Vasenina in two sets, 6-2, 6-0.
Bejlkova competed against Revzina in the flight three singles spot on Monday. Bejlkova fell to Revzina, 6-3, 6-4, which gave Florida the fourth and final point they needed to clinch the win over the Bulls.
No. 77 Rehberger competed in the flight one singles spot on Monday against No. 17 Embree. Rehberger lost in two sets, 6-3, 6-2.
Koning also competed in singles action on Monday in the flight three singles spot against No. 81 Boonstra. Boonstra beat Koning in two sets, 6-1, 6-3.
Guevara closed out singles competition for USF in her flight six singles match against Claire Bartlett. This proved to be a long fought out battle between the two players. Bartlett won the first set, 7-5, but Guevara would come back in the second set and win it, 6-4, which sent the match into a tiebreaker set. The two players kept things close in the tiebreaker set, but Guevara would end up losing the tiebreaker set to Bartlett, 11-9.
The Bulls will be back in action on Friday, Feb. 19, when they welcome North Carolina State to the USF Varsity Tennis Courts. The match is set to start at 2 p.m.
