The Kansas State tennis team swept Wichita State in a best-of-seven match in Manhattan on Thursday.
The only match the Wildcats dropped was the second doubles match of the day. The Wildcat duo of sophomores Margot Decker and Anna Turco was bested 6-4 by juniors Esther Thebault and Sarvinoz Saidhujaeva.
The match was scored so that doubles was worth just one point awarded to the team who won two of three matches, though. K-State’s team of freshman Ioana Gheorghita and sophomore Maria Linares beat the Shockers 6-3 in the first doubles match.
Freshman Karine-Marion Job and junior Ines Mesquita rounded out the doubles portion of the competition with a 6-4 win in the final match. The two wins earned K-State a point.
In singles competition, K-State dropped just one set. Decker dropped her second set with senior Sandra Honigova, but rallied to win the match 6-0, 4-6, 6-2.
In the first singles round in singles competition, Job beat sophomore Lingwei Kong in straight sets 6-2, 6-3. Job’s win put K-State up 2-0.
The next match to finish featured Linares vs. Thebault. Linares won the first set 6-1, but was pushed to a tiebreak set where Linares prevailed 7-3.
After Linares and Decker’s wins, K-State had built a literally insurmountable 4-0 lead. The final three matches were one-set matches, played to eight.
Turco and Mesquita each won their matches 8-3, and freshman Maria Ponomareva won hers 8-4 to round out the day.
The Wildcats entered the competition ranked number 37, while the Shockers were ranked 40th in the country.
K-State is now 10-3 on the season and is on a three-match win streak. They will begin Big 12 play with a trip to Norman, Oklahoma, to face the Oklahoma Sooners on March 15.
