Moving On: UK Doubles Tandem Rallies for Opening Victory
ORLANDO – The old adage during this point of the season of, “survive and advance,” rang true for the No. 1 ranked Kentucky women’s tennis doubles tandem of Akvile Paražinskaite and Fiona Arrese on Monday in their debut at the NCAA Doubles Championship. The Wildcats had to rally from an opening-set loss for a 5-7, 6-3, 10-4 win over Wake Forest’s Brooke Killingsworth and Anna Brylin at the UTSA National Campus in Orlando.
The win pushed Kentucky’s duo to 21-4 on the season, including a 7-3 mark against ranked foes. Killingsworth and Brylin were rated as the No. 24 tandem in the country entering today’s matchup.
The Cats move on to the round of 16 and will face the winners of Miami’s Isabella Pfennig and Estela Perez-Somarriba vs. UCLA’s Elysia Bolton and Jada Hart on Tuesday. A match time has yet to be determined. Miami’s duo is ranked No. 22, while the Bruins are tabbed the No. 59 team in the country.
Live stats can be found here, while video will be provided by the TennisOne app.
Killingsworth and Brylin gave everything they had against the Wildcats in a tightly contested match. UK edged the Deacons in total points by a slim 72-69 margin.
In Wake Forest’s opening set victory, seven of the 12 games (58.3%) went the distance. Kentucky appeared to take control with a breakpoint to push the score to 3-2. After inching ahead behind its serve to a 4-2 margin, the Deacons rallied to take the next three games to earn a 5-4 lead. The Cats would claim one more game to make it 5-5, but the Deacons prevailed in each of the next two to earn the opening set by a 7-5 clip.
After having suffered three consecutive losses in doubles play entering this week’s tournament, Paražinskaite and Arrese once again found themselves with their backs against the walls.
And that’s when they were at their best.
The Wildcats moved ahead 2-0 and seized eight of the opening nine points in the second stanza. Wake Forest didn’t give in, however, and eventually knotted things at three apiece. UK answered with its second breakpoint of the set to move in front 4-3 and never looked back. The Wildcats prevailed in each of the final three games for a commanding 6-3 win to force the tiebreak.
Wake Forest appeared to take control early in the tiebreak with a 3-2 score, but UK notched points over eight of the next nine points for an absolutely dominating 10-4 win. Kentucky led 6-4 and scored the final four points to move on to the round of 16.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s tennis program, follow @UKWomensTennis on Twitter and on Instagram, on Facebook and on the web at UKathletics.com.
