Albuquerque, N. M. – The BYU women’s tennis team opened up its road trip with a big 7-0 sweep over New Mexico Friday.
“Huge win tonight against a tough team,” BYU head coach Lauren Jones-Spencer said. “It was a fight in doubles, but we stuck with it and pulled out on top. We were able to ride that momentum into singles and win all of the singles. It means a lot because it's a 7-0 on the road after a tough match last weekend. Proud of my girls and how they performed today.”
Sophomore Samantha Smith and junior Taylah Beckman took on Lauren Rich and Natasha Munday of New Mexico (2-5) in No. 3 doubles. After being tied up 4-4, BYU (6-4, 2-1 WCC) took control of the match to win the next two games and earn the victory, 6-4.
In No. 2 doubles, sophomores Kate Cusick and Polina Malykh matched up against New Mexico’s Danielle Quevedo and Hsiang-Wen Huang. The two teams kept the match back and forth and sent it into a tiebreaker, but the Lobo’s pulled ahead to win 7-6 (7-4), leaving the doubles point up to the No. 1 doubles result.
In another tight match, senior Mayci Jones and freshman Anastasia Abramyan earned the match point for Cougars defeating Bronte Murgett and Dianna Wong of New Mexico 7-5.
With a 1-0 BYU lead, Smith played against New Mexico’s Yue Lin Chen in No. 6 singles and got another point for the Cougars with a 6-2, 6-3 win. Malykh playing in No. 4 singles put BYU ahead 3-0 after a solid 6-3, 6-2 win over Murgett. Malykh remains undefeated in singles play, 7-0.
Freshman Madeline Almeida took on Quevedo in No. 3 singles and delivered a big 6-1, 6-2 decision to guarantee a BYU victory, making it 4-0.
In No. 5 singles, the Cougars remained dominant as Freshman Hermehr Kaur played Munday and won the match 6-2, 6-3. Abramyan faced Wong once again, but this time for No. 2 singles. Abramyan won the first set handily, but had to fight her way through the second set to earn 6-2, 6-4 victory, putting BYU up 6-0 over New Mexico.
The decision was made to play out the No. 1 singles matchup of Jones and New Mexico’s Ruth Copas. The two battled throughout the entire match and kept it very close, but Jones proved to be too much and completed the 7-0 sweep with a 7-6, 6-4 win.
The Cougars will remain in Albuquerque at the McKinnon Family Tennis Stadium to compete against New Mexico State tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. MST. No live stats or streaming will be available for this match.