Cougars hang tough in 4-3 loss to Oregon

PROVO, Utah — BYU women’s tennis fell 4-3 to Oregon Thursday afternoon at the BYU Indoor Tennis Courts, in a competition that took more than four hours and 20 minutes to play and went right down to the wire.

Despite early leads in both doubles and singles play, and then a late comeback in the No. 5 and No. 6 singles spots, the Cougars weren’t able to hold on against the Ducks, who came into Provo on a three-match winning streak, which included two wins over top-25 teams.

BYU falls to 7-12 on the season with the loss. Oregon is now 12-5.

After Oregon took the doubles point, BYU battled back with singles wins from Bobo Huang in the No. 2 spot (6-1, 6-2) and Emily Astle in the No. 3 spot (6-1, 6-4) to make it 2-2 after the first three singles matches completed.

Oregon took the fourth singles match, making it 3-2 and forcing BYU to need to win both of the final singles matches to get the win.

Xenia De Luna took care of business first, with a 6-4, 6-1 win in the No. 6 spot, tying the overall score at 3-3, and setting up a winner-take-all showdown in the final singles match of the day, with all eyes on Court 1.

Kara Lin just came up short for the Cougars, battling hard in a 6-4, 2-6, 1-6 result. It was the only match of the day that went to three sets.

Next up for the Cougars is a home West Coast Conference matchup against San Diego on Saturday at noon.

Doubles:

1. Martinez Moral/Luescher def. Heimuli/Jiao: 6-3 (2nd)
2. Mulville/Petchey def. Abramyan/Huang: 6-2 (1st)
3. Astle/Lin vs. Young/Teixido: 4-5 (DNF)

Singles:

1. Luescher def. Heimuli: 6-4, 6-4 (2nd)
2. Huang def. Petchey: 6-1, 6-2 (1st)
3. Astle def. Texido Garcia: 6-1, 6-4 (3rd)
4. Young def. Smith: 6-4, 6-4 (4th)
5. Martinez Moral def. Lin: 4-6, 6-2, … (6th)
6. De Luna def. Mulville: 6-4, 6-1 (5th)