The No. 9 A&M women’s tennis team made a statement yesterday after blanking No. 15 Baylor on the road to improve to 3-0 on the young season.
The doubles matchups—particularly the first team doubles matchup were a focal point in the match and the Aggies relied on their depth to get the crucial first point. They won the two and three doubles matches to secure a 1-0 lead going into singles play, leaving the ones matchup unfinished.
The lead featured a 6-2 victory from junior Rutuja Bhosale and senior Anna Mamalat and a 6-0 victory from junior Saska Gavrilolvska and freshman Dominica Gonzalez. It became A&M’s match to win in singles play, where Baylor had to deal with two top 100 players in the country in Gavrilovska and junior Rachel Pierson as well as 106th ranked singles player Rutuja Bhosale.
In singles play the Aggies continued to rely on their depth to get the job done, all the way from one to six, and they took care of business without giving up a single point to complete the shutout. The team fed off a dominating performance from sophomore Eva Paalma who beat Rhiann Newborn 6-2, 6-0.
The deciding points came from Pierson who had a 6-3, 6-4 win over Kelley Anderson and Anna Mamalat who had a comeback 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 victory over Gabriela Ferreira after forcing a tiebreaker in the second set to stay alive before finishing off the match in the final set.
With the convincing win, Mark Weaver’s Aggies move to 3-0 and look to work their way closer towards cracking the top five. Baylor now moves to 3-0 and hopes to remain in the top 20 after the loss. A&M will continue their road trip Sunday the 31st where they will travel to the east coast to take on North Carolina. The match is set to begin at 11am in Chapel Hill.
