LEXINGTON, Ky. – In the final match of the regular season, the Vanderbilt women’s tennis team topped Kentucky, 5-2, on Sunday afternoon.
Vanderbilt convincingly won the doubles point while playing with a completely new lineup. Alex Leatu and Keilly Ulery held Kentucky’s Jessica Stiles and Cece Witten scoreless on court three, and the duo of Rachael Dillon and Jackie Wu downed Khristina Blajkevitch and Megan Broderick, 8-2.
With the doubles point already clinched, court two went to a tiebreaker when the match was tied at 7-7. Chelsea Preeg and Lauren Mira bested Caitlin McGraw and Marni Vanter, 8-6, in the tiebreaker to complete the sweep of doubles.
“Sometimes you can get stale playing with the same person in doubles,” said head coach Geoff Macdonald. “I think that changing the doubles pairs really energized all of the teams today. When you play with a new partner, you really have to stay on your toes and know who is going to cover what assignment. The change really freshened everything up for us.”
After not winning a game in singles play, Kentucky’s Jessica Stiles held Wu scoreless in the No. 2 singles match to even the score at 1-1. Preeg posted a 6-2, 6-2 win over Blajkevitch on court three to give the Commodores the lead for good.
In the No. 4 match, Mira dropped her first set, 1-6, but tied the match with a 6-3 win in the second. She kept Kentucky’s Caitlin McGraw off the scoreboard in the third set to win the match and give the Dores a 3-1 lead.
Dillon clinched the victory for the Commodores with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Witten in the No. 5 match. Kentucky picked up one more win in the match when Broderick defeated Leatu, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 on court one.
Nelly Radeva closed out the afternoon with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Misha Testerman in the No. 6 match.
The Commodores travel to Knoxville for the SEC Tournament, which begins on Thursday. Vanderbilt just missed out on a first round bye, and will play as the No. 5 seed. The Dores face No. 12 Mississippi State in the first round match, which will be played Thursday at 9 a.m. The winner of that match will advance to face Alabama on Friday.
