Women’s tennis closes regular season with win

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Jack Kennedy, Staff Reporter

No. 35 Alabama women’s tennis finished its regular season with a 4-1 win over Missouri. The Crimson Tide finish 18-10 on the season with a 6-7 record in SEC play.

“We are playing with a lot of momentum and confidence,” head coach Jenny Mainz said. “I thought today was difficult because of the difficult conditions due to the wind, but we wanted to play them outdoors and we did a good job of making adjustments as matches went on.”

For the third consecutive match, Alabama could not capture the doubles point. To start the doubles point, Alabama and Missouri split the first two doubles matches with the Crimson Tide’s No. 1 doubles pair of senior Andie Daniell and sophomore Moka Ita winning 6-3. On court No.3, juniors Ann Selim and Kimberly Gintrand were locked in a close match against Missouri’s No. 3 pair. Their match went to a tiebreak where Selim and Gintrand could not capitalize as they lost the tiebreak 7-3.

Despite the slow start to doubles, the Crimson Tide bounced back in singles by winning five of the six first sets. In her last regular season match at Alabama, Daniell secured the first point of the match for Alabama with a 6-2, 6-1 win.

“Obviously, I’m really happy and really proud of where this team has come since my freshman year until now,” Daniell said of her career at Alabama. “I could not have asked for a better senior weekend.”

Minutes later, Ito won her match 6-3, 6-2 to put Alabama in the lead. On court No. 5, junior Luca Fabian won the first set 6-2 and was up 4-1 in the second set. But her opponent did not falter as she broke Fabian’s serve to tie the set at 4-4. Fabian proceeded to win the next game and then broke her opponent’s serve in the final game of the match to win the match and extend Alabama’s lead to 3-1.

“At 4-4, Luca made the decision that she was going to win the match,” said Mainz. “You could see it in her eyes, you could see in her walk, and you could hear it when she yelled her ‘come on.’”

Selim was the only player for Alabama that lost her first set, but she responded with a dominant closing to her match. The 2-6, 6-2, 6-0 win by Selim clinched the match for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama will play LSU on Thursday in College Station, Texas in the SEC Championships.