Women’s tennis drops two matches

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    By Brandon Zinn

    In its last matches before the Mountain West Conference tournament, the women’s tennis team faced two very strong teams and lost to both.

    Both matches took place in Florida where first up was a match against the University of Florida on Friday, April 7.

    The match looked as tough on paper as it turned out to be in real life.

    BYU is ranked 30th in the Nation while Florida is ranked 7th.

    The Cougars star player is Eline Chiew, who was ranked 71st in the Nation.

    Florida has three players in the top 45 and three doubles teams in the top 26.

    Add all of this to the fact that the matches were in Florida and you have BYU suffering an 8-1 lost.

    Things didn’t get much easier on Saturday either, where BYU faced No. 35 Arkansas.

    Against Arkansas Chiew now face the No. 19 player in the nation as opposed to the No. 25 player she faced on Friday.

    Chiew fought hard, but lost in straight sets 7-6,6-2.

    Arkansas forfeited the doubles points, but BYU could only manage to win one of the singles matches.

    Dominique Reynolds avenged her Friday loss by beating Youlia Boyadjieva 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

    “Niki is playing really well,” said BYU’s head coach Craig Manning.

    Only six of the 11 sets BYU lost were by a score of 6-3 or worse.

    Manning said the team fought hard. He also said that after the match the Lady Razorback’s coach said to him, “Do you guys ever give up?”

    The team might not ever give up, but they sure do suffer a lot of injuries.

    Jodi Richardson, who has been battling injuries all season long, did not play singles because of a sore ankle.

    Fortunately BYU now has two and a half weeks to rest up for the MWC tournament.

    Manning said the first thing the team will focus on is getting everybody healthy.

    After that, he said he wants to see if, as a whole team, they can put some good solid practices together.

    The MWC tournament will be from April 27-29 in Las Vegas.

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