After turbulent singles play and multiple weather scares moved play indoors, the No. 1 UNC women’s tennis team (28-3, 12-1 ACC) failed to beat the No. 4 seed Texas Longhorns (25-4, 8-1 Big 12), losing 4-2 in the NCAA semifinals.
What happened?
After beating Pepperdine on Friday and entering the Texas matchup ranked No. 1, UNC was prepared for an easy win. After courts one and two saw losses in doubles play, UNC’s future in the tournament ultimately fell into question.
During the doubles matchup, junior Elizabeth Scotty played close to the net with sophomore duo partner Fiona Crawley, aiming to find the same magic they had during ITA fall play, but ultimately fell short. On the same front, senior Cameron Morra and sophomore Reilly Tran had similarly strong plays early on, but began to fall short as the night went on, which allowed Texas to clinch the key doubles point as their match remained unfinished.
After dropping the doubles point early on with two losses on the courts, the Tar Heels started singles play with a 6-0, 6-4 first-set win from sophomore Fiona Crawley.
Junior Anika Yarlagadda won the tiebreaker in set one with a deep forehand, keeping her opponent near the baseline and using deep groundstrokes to clinch the match point. Carson Tanguilig also won a first-set tiebreaker, playing close to the baseline after play was moved inside for the second time during the night after multiple weather delays.
After multiple courts went into tiebreakers during singles play, the Longhorns ultimately took home the win 4-2.
Who stood out?
Crawley had one of the most impressive showings of the night, as her 6-0, 6-4 win in her singles matchup brought the Tar Heels to an early 1-1 tie. She bounced back from a rare singles loss in Friday’s match with Saturday’s win over Charlotte Chavatipon, giving Crawley her 43rd singles win of the season, leading all DI players.
