TEMPE – ASU's sixth-ranked doubles duo continued its dominant start to the season in a barnburner of a match that saw the No. 14 Trojans of USC squeak out a 4-3 win over the Sun Devils, Saturday at the Whiteman Tennis Center.
"Yesterday was a tough one and today was really tough with three team-match points," coach Sheila McInerney said. "We just couldn't finish it. It's disappointing because they really poured their hearts into this one. With that said, I thought we competed well, played hard and had chances to win it. That's all you can ask for in sports is the opportunity. Give SC credit today – they were tough when they needed to be."
For the eighth time in nine matches, ASU found itself up early thanks to outstanding doubles play. Just like Friday's thriller with No. 6 UCLA, the crucial wins came on courts one and three.
"Lauryn and Ilze are playing really well and they beat two very good doubles teams this weekend," McInerney said. "Sam and Sammi have been playing pretty well on court three and they were big for us this weekend."
Southern Cal jumped ahead when they won on court two 6-0, but the All-American duo of No. 6 John-Baptiste/Hattingh kept ASU in contention for the doubles point by cruising to a 6-2 win on court one over No. 13 Valdes/Kulikov.
The win was their fourth over an opponent ranked in the top-25 and the tandem's sixth win on the season.
"Having Lauryn and Ilze is big for us, but it's never a sure thing because court-one doubles is always really hard to win," McInerney said. "Everyone up there is tough, but when you have a duo who is going to win a majority of the matches up there, it helps a lot for sure."
Alicea/Hampton completed their sweep of the LA opponents with their point-clinching win on court three over Jaeger/Branstine. The match was nearly identical to the Sun Devils' battle with UCLA's Johnson/Altick from Friday. Both duos refused to go away and eventually court three found itself in a stalemate that sent the match into a tiebreak.
Alicea/Hampton locked in and took the match and doubles point 7-6 (5) to send ASU into singles play needing three wins to complete the upset.
Tereza Kolarova had her hands full Saturday afternoon with No. 84 Angela Kulikov on court three. The Trojans would go on to tie the match with a win there, and take the lead with a win on court six.
Lauryn John-Baptiste picked up back-to-back wins for the first time this season when she downed Rianna Valdes in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. The win brought the Devils back even with their Pac-12 foes and they'd take the lead soon after with a win on court five.
After suffering a heartbreaking third-set defeat during Friday's outing, Sun Devil junior Savannah Slaysman bounced back in a big way to pull off a comeback win over Becca Weissmann.
She dropped the first set 4-6, but stormed back to smother Weissmann 6-1 to force a third. Although Weissmann appeared to have found her groove again, Slaysman proved to be too much and held on to win 7-5 to put ASU one win away from completing the upset.
On court one, Ilze Hattingh faced the toughest opponent of the day in the No. 45 singles player in the country. She held her ground for the entirety of the match and just missed out on recording the upset, falling 7-5, 3-6, 5-7.
The match came down to court four's match between Sammi Hampton and USC's Ana Neffa. Much like Hattingh's court one nail-biter, Hampton went up a set on the No. 120-ranked Trojan and came up shy of taking the match for herself and for the Devils.
"We opened Pac-12 play against two of the better teams in the conference and we fought them tooth and nail," McInerney said. "If anything, you feel bad for the kids to lose both of them because of how hard they played. It's nice to win the doubles point, but it's only one point and you still have to go out there and win three singles matches, unfortunately we couldn't find a way to get that done this weekend."
With the schools from Southern California out of the way, the Sun Devils turn their attention to the Bay Area programs as they head up to visit California and Stanford next week for their first Pac-12 road challenge of the season.
"Yesterday was a tough one and today was really tough with three team-match points," coach Sheila McInerney said. "We just couldn't finish it. It's disappointing because they really poured their hearts into this one. With that said, I thought we competed well, played hard and had chances to win it. That's all you can ask for in sports is the opportunity. Give SC credit today – they were tough when they needed to be."
For the eighth time in nine matches, ASU found itself up early thanks to outstanding doubles play. Just like Friday's thriller with No. 6 UCLA, the crucial wins came on courts one and three.
"Lauryn and Ilze are playing really well and they beat two very good doubles teams this weekend," McInerney said. "Sam and Sammi have been playing pretty well on court three and they were big for us this weekend."
Southern Cal jumped ahead when they won on court two 6-0, but the All-American duo of No. 6 John-Baptiste/Hattingh kept ASU in contention for the doubles point by cruising to a 6-2 win on court one over No. 13 Valdes/Kulikov.
The win was their fourth over an opponent ranked in the top-25 and the tandem's sixth win on the season.
"Having Lauryn and Ilze is big for us, but it's never a sure thing because court-one doubles is always really hard to win," McInerney said. "Everyone up there is tough, but when you have a duo who is going to win a majority of the matches up there, it helps a lot for sure."
Alicea/Hampton completed their sweep of the LA opponents with their point-clinching win on court three over Jaeger/Branstine. The match was nearly identical to the Sun Devils' battle with UCLA's Johnson/Altick from Friday. Both duos refused to go away and eventually court three found itself in a stalemate that sent the match into a tiebreak.
Alicea/Hampton locked in and took the match and doubles point 7-6 (5) to send ASU into singles play needing three wins to complete the upset.
Tereza Kolarova had her hands full Saturday afternoon with No. 84 Angela Kulikov on court three. The Trojans would go on to tie the match with a win there, and take the lead with a win on court six.
Lauryn John-Baptiste picked up back-to-back wins for the first time this season when she downed Rianna Valdes in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. The win brought the Devils back even with their Pac-12 foes and they'd take the lead soon after with a win on court five.
After suffering a heartbreaking third-set defeat during Friday's outing, Sun Devil junior Savannah Slaysman bounced back in a big way to pull off a comeback win over Becca Weissmann.
She dropped the first set 4-6, but stormed back to smother Weissmann 6-1 to force a third. Although Weissmann appeared to have found her groove again, Slaysman proved to be too much and held on to win 7-5 to put ASU one win away from completing the upset.
On court one, Ilze Hattingh faced the toughest opponent of the day in the No. 45 singles player in the country. She held her ground for the entirety of the match and just missed out on recording the upset, falling 7-5, 3-6, 5-7.
The match came down to court four's match between Sammi Hampton and USC's Ana Neffa. Much like Hattingh's court one nail-biter, Hampton went up a set on the No. 120-ranked Trojan and came up shy of taking the match for herself and for the Devils.
"We opened Pac-12 play against two of the better teams in the conference and we fought them tooth and nail," McInerney said. "If anything, you feel bad for the kids to lose both of them because of how hard they played. It's nice to win the doubles point, but it's only one point and you still have to go out there and win three singles matches, unfortunately we couldn't find a way to get that done this weekend."
With the schools from Southern California out of the way, the Sun Devils turn their attention to the Bay Area programs as they head up to visit California and Stanford next week for their first Pac-12 road challenge of the season.