The Texas A&M women’s tennis team is coming off an NCAA National Championship and looking to continue dominating on the court. The Aggies began their fall campaign by traveling to Waco over the weekend to compete at the H-E-B invitational at Baylor’s Hurd Tennis Center. The Maroon and White finished their opening tournament with six singles wins and a doubles victory.
The tournament lasted from Friday to Sunday and featured players from Arizona, Baylor, Colorado, Houston, Illinois, Nebraska, Rice, SMU and UTSA.
There were three players competing for the Maroon and White, featuring a pair of returning juniors in Daria Smetannikov, who finished last year with a 17-12 singles record, and Lizanne Boyer, who ended last season on a six-match singles winning streak. The final Aggie competing was freshman Lexington Reed, a five-star prospect and the No. 8 recruit in the nation.
In singles play, all players were separated into seven different brackets — blue, red, green, purple, orange, yellow and white. For doubles play, teams were placed into four different brackets: blue, red, green, and yellow.
Starting off the tournament with doubles play, A&M’s duo of junior Daria Smetannikov and Reed were seeded at No. 2 in the blue bracket but were taken down by Illinois’ upperclassman duo of senior Kida Ferrari and junior Violeta Martinez in the first round, 6-1.
After a strong season where she finished above .500 in singles percentage, Smettannikov continued where she left off as the No. 2 seed in the blue singles bracket. Living up to her seed, she downed Rice junior Darya Schwartzman in a one-sided battle to advance to the blue bracket semifinals, 6-2, 6-1.
Making her debut for the Maroon and White, Reed had a strong performance in the first round of the red bracket against UTSA’s sophomore Vittoria Baccino, winning the first set before Baccino retired in the second set, 7-6(1), 1-0.
Rounding out the Aggies on Friday, junior Lizanne Boyer showed why she was the No. 1 seed in the green bracket as she took the victory over the Owls’ sophomore Nithesa Selvaraj to move on to the semifinals of the green bracket, 6-2, 7-5.
Beginning Saturday with doubles play, Reed and Smetannikov teamed up to take down the Roadrunners’ junior Letizia Corsini and sophomore Ekua Youri in field blue bracket play, 6-4.
Smetannikov kicked off Saturday’s singles play for the Maroon and White by defeating Houston junior Sophie Schouten in the semifinals of the blue bracket to move on to the final, 6-3, 6-1.
Reed’s debut tournament came to an end in the semifinals of the red bracket as she was taken out by Arizona sophomore Danielle Tuhten in a close tiebreak, 6(4)-7(7), 6-3, [13-11].
Boyer made a strong effort to defend her No. 1 seed but was upset by Houston sophomore Valeriia Krokhotina in the longest match of Day 2, 6(1)-7(7), 7(7)-6(5), 5-10.
Representing the Maroon and White in the final of the blue bracket, Smetannikov swept her entire draw and captured the crown without dropping a set, taking down Martinez, 6-1, 6-2. Boyer dropped a match to Illinois freshman Ariel Madatali, 5-7, 6-3 [10-5].
The Aggies will be back in action as they travel to Cary Tennis Park in Cary, North Carolina to compete at the ITA All-American Championship from Saturday, Sept. 21 to Sunday, Sept. 29.
