Iowa State Falls To No. 6 Texas

AUSTIN, Texas - The Iowa State tennis team lost a tough matchup to No. 6 Texas, 6-1, in Austin. The loss drops the 48th-ranked Cyclones to 9-5 overall and 1-2 in Big 12 play following a pair of setbacks on both ends of a difficult trip in Texas. The Longhorns move to 11-3 overall and 2-0 in Big 12 action.

In doubles play, the Longhorns picked up the first two matches to earn the point, but the #48 pairing of Thasaporn Naklo and Christin Hsieh was leading 5-2 in a match that went unfinished.

Following in singles, Iowa State struggled to get going against a number of highly ranked opponents. The Cyclones lost the first four completed singles matches, including matchups against the No. 4 and No. 14 singles players in the nation in the top two slots.

The lone point for the Cyclones came from freshman Chie Kezuka out of the No. 5 slot in the final decision of the day. After dropping a tough first set, Kezuka managed to claw her way to victory over Tijana Spasojevic 6-7, 6-4, 1-0. The victory pushes Kezuka to 2-1 in singles conference matchups.

The Cyclones return to action next weekend, playing host to the other two Big 12 schools from Texas. On Friday, Iowa State welcomes No. 42 Texas Tech to town at 5 p.m., and the Cyclones will follow that up with TCU on Sunday at noon.

Doubles (Order of finish: 3, 1)
#1 – #29 Anna Turati/Bianca Turati (TEX) def. Maty Cancini/Ting-Pei Chang (ISU), 6-1
#2 – #48 Thasaporn Naklo/Christin Hsieh (ISU) vs. Fernanda Labraña/Marta Perez Mur (TEX), 5-2 UF
#3 – #80 Tijana Spasojevic/Adri Nagy (TEX) def. Chie Kezuka/Margarita Timakova (ISU), 6-2

Singles (Order of finish: 6, 4, 2, 1, 3, 5)
#1 – #14 B. Turati (TEX) def. Cancini (ISU), 6-0, 6-2
#2 – #4 A. Turati (TEX) def. #119 Naklo (ISU), 6-1, 6-1
#3 – Labraña (TEX) def. Christin Hsieh (ISU) 3-6, 7-5, 1-0
#4 – Nagy (TEX) def. Chang (ISU), 6-3, 6-2
#5 – Kezuka (ISU) def. Spasojevic (TEX), 6-7, 6-4, 1-0
#6 – Perez Mur (TEX) def. Timakova (ISU), 6-1, 6-1

Players Mentioned

Maty Cancini

Ting-Pei Chang

Christin Hsieh

Chie Kezuka

Thasaporn Naklo

Margarita Timakova

Sponsors

Iowa State University Athletics