After a four-match away stretch, No. 13 Texas women’s tennis was back at home for two matches over the weekend against No. 9 LSU and No. 49 Ole Miss, both resulting in 2–4 losses.
Last year in the Big 12, head coach Howard Joffe’s Longhorns lost only a single conference match. Now, in their first year in the Southeastern Conference, they hold a 4–5 conference record with a 10–8 overall record. While a win against No. 9 LSU would have done wonders for Texas’ resume, the team was without two of its best players.
No. 51 Sabina Zeynalova, the lone senior on the Texas roster, has been out with injury since the fall season. And against LSU, freshman Ariana Anazagasty-Pursoo was pulled from her singles match after filling in for Zeynalova for the doubles match.
“When you don’t have your number one player (Zeynalova) playing, and when you don’t have your other starter in Ariana able to play singles — I don’t think there’s any team in the top 10 that could withstand that,” Joffe said. “I could be all bent out of shape about the result, but I’m not. I’m rather encouraged.”
The Longhorns played without a third of their starting lineup against LSU. Of the 12 women playing Friday, 11 were freshmen. Texas secured the first point of the day after three challenging doubles matches.
On court three, freshman duo No. 20 Carmen Hera and No. 54 Eszter Meri started Texas off strong with a 6–4 victory. The second doubles game was lost to LSU’s top doubles duo, Cadence Brace and Kayla Cross. With the No. 7 duo in the nation defeating Texas freshmen duo Anazagasty-Pursoo and Ashton Bowers, the doubles point would come down to the final doubles game.
Texas secured the doubles point with Salma Drugdova and Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz beating the No. 29 doubles duo of Tilwith Di Girolami and Anita Sahdiieva, 7–5.
LSU then went on a three-point run in the singles, 3–1, before the match finally ended 4–2.
The last time the Longhorns had a worse record than now was in 2016-17 when the team went 14–9. However, that season conference win percentage was still positive, with a record of 6–3.
Coach Joffe hoped to have Zeynalova or Anazagasty-Pursoo back for Sunday against Ole Miss but was ready to take on the Rebels without them.
“My hope is we’ll have one of the two players I alluded to available,” Joffe said. “If I had a guess that isn’t the case, and so there won’t be any adjustments. It will just be another opportunity for these kids to get rough competition.”
Joffe’s outlook was correct, and Texas had to face Ole Miss on Sunday without a third of its starters. Although Anazagasty-Pursoo was available for her doubles match, she and Bowers lost to the Rebel senior duo of Anaëlle Leclercq and Ludmila Kareisova. The Rebels would take the doubles point.
The Rebel’s Alice Souli finished the Longhorns off by clinching the match point against redshirt freshman Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz.
With little time left in the season, Texas will have to put its faith in health if it wants to go far in the NCAA tournament.
“We don’t have a ton of time; we’ve got four to six weeks to get everyone healthy and play together, and I do feel like we can be there right at the end,” Joffe said.
Texas has six matches before the SEC Championship takes place in Auburn, Alabama, in mid-April. The team’s next match is in Knoxville, facing the Tennessee Volunteers.
