Kentucky Breezes Past Purdue at The Boone on Sunday
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Women’s Tennis team powered past the Purdue Boilermakers on Sunday afternoon in the bluegrass, scoring the first five points of the match including the doubles point in dramatic fashion to pick up its third win of the season, and first power five victory on the year.
All the matches were played out once Kentucky picked up its fourth point of the day, as the Wildcats claimed the win with a final score of 6-1.
In the doubles point, it was a tight contest that came down to courts one and three. Zoe Hammons and Tess Bucher put together an impressive and straightforward 6-4 win on court two, breaking twice in the match to give Kentucky the early edge in the doubles point. With the point in the balance, court one with Ellie Eades and Lizzy Stevens entered a tiebreak, and Julia Zhu and Asuncion Jadue were locked in a 5-5 battle on court three. Kentucky then picked up match points on both courts with Stevens and Eades leading 6-5 in a tiebreak and Zhu/Jadue locked in a 40-40 game, court one ended the point as Eades and Stevens took the tiebreak, 7-5 and the match, 7-6, to give UK the 1-0 lead.
Kentucky’s lead was quickly doubled in singles as Lizzy Stevens marched right through her opponent, No. 101 Ida Clement on court two, 6-1, 6-2 in two quick sets. Almost just as quickly, and also only succumbing to three games in the entire match was Julia Zhu on court three, who beat Purdue’s top-ranked player, No. 73 Fatima Gutierrez, 6-1, 6-2 to wrap up a 3-0 lead for the Wildcats less than 70 minutes into singles play at The Boone.
UK clinched the win in its fourth-straight point to open the match as Zoe Hammond on court one breezed right past another ranked player in Carmen Gall Guevara 6-4, 6-2 in straight sets to quickly mount a 4-0 lead for the Wildcats, who were clicking on all cylinders.
The Wildcats played add-on in the later stages of the afternoon as Ellie Eades won a marathon match out on court four in two tiebreak sets, 7-6, (5), 7-6 (2) as she collected yet another singles win on the season to bump Kentucky’s lead up to 5-0 as the remaining singles matches were chosen to be played out.
Kentucky’s sixth point came off the racquet of freshman Asuncion Jadue in two sets on court six, 7-6 (5), 7-5 to wrap up the day and a third-straight 6-1 win at home to start the year in Lexington. With the win, Kentucky improves to 3-1 on the year, earning an impressive bounce-back win after a 4-3 loss in Iowa City in the midweek to the host Hawkeyes. UK will play host to Eastern Kentucky next Saturday, Feb. 1 inside the Boone Tennis Center for a doubleheader beginning at 10 a.m. ET with free admission as the non-conference slate enters its final four-match stretch.
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