Texas women’s tennis faced Stanford in an intense matchup at the Texas Tennis Center in Austin this Saturday. Texas fell short in singles, ending the day with a 5-2 loss to Stanford.

Texas’ doubles team of junior Charlotte Chavatipon and sophomore Sabina Zeynalova started off a tight game against Angelica Blake and Alexis Blokhina all tied up 2-2. Texas increased the lead to 5-2, ultimately taking the victory 6-2 in a tight final point.

The duo of junior Taisiya Pachkaleva and freshman Nicole Rivkin confidently started their set 4-1, but Stanford’s Connie Ma and Valencia Xu slowly crawled back to tie the match. However, Texas took the two remaining sets back-to-back and secured the doubles point with a 6-3 win. 

Going into the singles matchups, Stanford dominated the first sets across the board, with the exception of graduate student Marlee Zein, who had a strong start against Sara Choy, finishing the set 6-1. No. 25 Alexandra Yepifanova of Stanford took the first singles victory against freshman Nicole Khirin in a 4-6, 3-6 loss for Texas for Stanford’s first point of the day to tie the total score. 

Texas rallied in some of the second sets, with No. 79 Zeynalova getting a 6-2 win over No. 20 Blake and Pachkaleva in a 6-2 win over Xu. No. 5 Ma of Stanford got the second singles point against No. 60 Chavatipon, in a 2-6, 4-6 loss, giving Stanford a 1-2 lead. 

After a long first set between junior Malaika Rapolu and No. 72 Blokhina, Stanford took the first set, 6-7. Going into the second set, it was a tight set for both, but Rapolu’s efforts could not take down Blokhina, who took the second set 4-6, stretching Stanford’s lead even further to 1-3.

At this point in the encounter, Texas had to win the remaining three games, while Stanford only needed one to secure the victory. 

After coming back with a strong performance in the second set, Pachkaleva continued with a hard hand into the third set, getting the point in a 3–6, 6–2, 6–4 win over Xu, and gave Texas a point to chase Stanford 2–3.

Even with a powerful performance going into the third set, Zeynalova ultimately fell short against Blake in a 2-6, 6-2, 4-6 match. Blake’s win sealed Stanford’s victory of the day, giving them their fourth point, becoming out of reach for Texas.

Zein’s strong first set did not carry on into the second, as she struggled in a tight set against Choy, falling short in a 4-6 set. Into the third, Choy got her tiebreaking win in a 5-7 set, setting the final score of the day at 2-5 for Stanford.

Texas will face off against Rice this Saturday, March 4, in Houston.