The No. 29 UC Santa Barbara women’s tennis team bested No. 73 Hawaii 5-2 on Friday afternoon at the Arnhold Tennis Center. The win marks the Gauchos’ (10-6) second conference victory of the season, having swept UC Davis on Feb. 21. Santa Barbara has now won five of its last six matches.
While a closely contested 6-6 match was left unfinished on court one, the Gauchos seized the doubles point with 6-3 wins on courts two and three. On court three, the No. 68 duo of Amelia Honer and Kira Reuter beat Tal Talya Zandberg and Ana Vilcek and on court two, Marta Gonzalez Ballbe and Camille Kiss clinched the point with a triumph over Nidhi Surapeneni and Gitte Heynemans.
Moving onto singles, Reuter made it 2-0 in favor of Santa Barbara, beating Heynemans 6-1, 6-2 on court six. Honer collected a 6-0, 6-1 win over Zandberg on court four making it 3-0.
Filippa Bruu-Syversen beat Madison Kim 6-2, 6-4 on court five to clinch the match for UCSB.
Following the clinching point, the Rainbow Wahine picked up wins on courts two and three. Satsuki Takamura took down Elizaveta Volodko 2-6, 7-6(3), 10-4 on two and Vilcek won 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4) over Kiss on court three.
The Gauchos picked up a fifth and final point with No. 105 Shakhnoza Khatamova’s nail-biting 6-4, 6-7(4), 10-5 victory over Lea Romain on court one.
Santa Barbara is right back in action tomorrow at 10:30 A.M., continuing conference play as they host Long Beach State.
Daniel Messinger writes about sports for UCSB.
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