UK Women’s Tennis Commences 2019 SEC Championship, Meets Arkansas in Second Round
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The postseason commences for the University of Kentucky women’s tennis team at the 2019 Southeastern Conference Championship in College Station, Texas. Claiming the sixth seed and earning a bye, Kentucky (17-7, SEC 7-6) will compete against No. 11-seed Arkansas in the second round on Thursday, at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
The first serve is scheduled for 11 a.m. ET, with the potential of an earlier start time due to incoming weather. Live scoring and live streaming will be available.
The Razorbacks defeated No. 14-seed Missouri in the first round on Wednesday, clinching the doubles point and allowing Missouri to only one point in the singles division. UK has met both opponents, hosting each of the programs in the conference home opener in March. The Wildcats defeated the Razorbacks in their first league match of the season, 5-1.
In the conference home opener vs. Arkansas, UK dropped only the doubles point, but won four straight singles matches to notch the dual match. Razorbacks Martina Zerulo and Tatum Rice upset then-No. 50 Justina Mikulskyte and Akvile Paražinskaite on a 6-2 mark. Foes Jackie Carr and Laure Rijkers beat Anastasia Tkachenko and Alexis Merrill, also on a 6-2 mark, to clinch the doubles point.
Since that dual match, the Razorback pair in Zerulo and Rice now boast a 48th-place ranking in the ITA/Oracle Top 80 on a 7-7 overall record. Meanwhile, the UK upperclassmen duo in Mikulskyte and Paražinskaite rank a season-best No. 13 in the national polls, sporting a 13-4 overall mark and a spotless 8-0 record against ranked doubles teams.
In the dual match to start the conference season, then-No. 46 Mikulskyte was the first to clinch her court in the singles division. She carded a 6-0, 6-2 mark against then-No. 81 Rice. It helped Mikulskyte to her current 7-3 mark against ranked singles opponents and the Lithuania native’s current ITA/Oracle Top 125 National Singles Ranking of No. 21.
Rice still leads the Razorbacks in the national singles polls, boasting a current 76th ranking, and is scheduled to be the team’s No. 2 player in the singles division throughout the conference tournament. Not far off is Razorbacks’ Zerulo, ranked 85th, and slated to compete on the first court this week. Both Rice and Zerulo are 6-5 in singles, respectively, in the league.
In the latest ITA/Oracle National Team Rankings released on Tuesday, UK fell out of the top 25, only to fall to 27th. It came after back-to-back losses last weekend to top 20 teams on the road at then-No. 2 Georgia and then-No. 18 Tennessee. The Razorbacks (13-13, SEC 4-9) dropped one spot to 45th. Kentucky is 8-5 against nationally-ranked teams this season.
In last season’s tournament, the UK women’s tennis team earned the eighth seed and a bye, only to drop to then No. 9-seed Texas A&M in the second round, 4-3. Should the program advance past the second round this season, the Wildcats would compete against third-seeded Vanderbilt on Friday at 11 a.m. ET.
For more on Kentucky women’s tennis, follow @UKWomensTennis on Twitter and Instagram, Kentucky Women’s Tennis on Facebook, or on the web at UKathletics.com.
