Barrett FreemanThe Ole Miss women’s tennis team traveled to Starkville the weekend of Oct. 16 to compete in the Hail State Classic where they won six matches in total.
On Friday, the team dominated in doubles, sweeping all three of their doubles matches and winning four singles matches. Tiphanie Fiquet and Kelsey Mize served off the day with a dominant performance, winning against Alabama’s duo 6-1 in less than an hour of playing time.
The underclassmen, Lillie Gabrielson and Reka Zadori, defeated Mississippi State’s top duo team by a score of 6-3. To cap off the doubles competition, Alexa Bortles and Sabrina Machalova were in a tight match, which went back and forth into a tiebreaker. Ultimately, the Rebels prevailed after a swift return by Machalova at 40-40 for a 7-5 victory.
In the beginning of the singles matches on Friday, Machalova continued her success this season with a three-match victory against Alabama. In addition, newcomer Eesha Gudiseva won in her debut singles match for the Rebels. Fiquet and Bortles also won their singles matches in a comfortable fashion as well to secure 7 wins in a solid outing on the first day of events.
After resting on Saturday, the Rebels returned to action on Sunday and won six matches, including four doubles and two singles matches.
In total, the team took away 13 wins against Alabama and ended up facing Mississippi State only once on Friday.
Bortles and Machalova led the Rebels with two doubles victories against the Crimson Tide’s top pair, with only three doubles losses all season. Fiquet and Gabrielson also pulled away victorious in a close match, winning 7-5. Fiquet then went on to win another singles match, notching 2 out of 3 singles wins for the weekend. Zadori also added to the win column with a 6-7, 6-1 and 7-6 game totals for a match victory.
The Rebels will return to the court next weekend on Oct. 23-25 to compete in the Alabama Fall Invite in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
