University of Missouri
Kansas State
Tiger Tennis Falls to Kansas State
3/29/2003 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
March 29, 2003
COLUMBIA, Mo. - The University of Missouri tennis team dropped a hard fought decision to the Kansas State Wildcats 5-2 today at the Green Tennis Center. The #16 ranked duo of Urska Juric and Katka Sevcikova defeated Kansas State's top doubles team of Castillejos/Sedlmajerova 8-4. But that was all the Tigers would win as Kansas State picked up wins at #2 and #3 doubles.
"This was disappointing, and only K-State can feel good about what happened today," said MU Coach Starkey. "It was a tough, hard match for everyone involved. Even though the doubles got away from us, we still put ourselves in position to win. I don't want us in third sets to begin with, but if we are, we need to handle them better than we did today. We're capable, but we didn't play as well today as we could have. That's irritating. But a lot of credit goes K-State's girls. It's not like we just went out there and lost, we were beaten by a team that clearly wanted this more than we did, and today was their day. K-State fought great, competed better, and simply won the key situations. We'll swallow this, have a solid week of practice, and hopefully learn from this before our next outing."
After the doubles, it seemed as if the Tigers would run away with the match early on. MU junior Urska Juric quickly evened the team score with a 6-0, 6-3 dispatching of Petra Sedlmajerova at the #1 singles position. Katka Sevcikova (#3) was up 4-0 in the first set, teammate Kristina Olshanskaya (#4) was up 3-0, and Hana Kraftova (#2) had built a solid lead. Only Kraftova went on to win her match. Despite a big lead, Sevcikova dropped her first set, easily won the second, and then dropped the third. Olshanskaya was beaten in straight sets. At #6, Andrea Cooper defeated MU's Lucie Ruskova and MU's Mary Barry (#5) lost to Hayley McIver in three sets.
The Tigers will play again this Thursday as they take on Saint Louis University at the Green Tennis Center here in Columbia
