College Tennis News - No. 25 Rebels Shut Out Hawaii

Zalina Khairudinova

HONOLULU, Hawaii – After several days of practice and playing tourist in Hawaii, it was time for the No. 25 ranked Ole Miss women’s tennis team to play their first match of the 2015 season, and they were ready. The Rebels shut out the University of Hawaii 6-0 and won five of them in straight sets.

With the threat of rain looming, the match was moved up from its original start time of 8 PM CT, and the teams elected to begin with singles. Doubles was not played.

The Rebels jumped out to a 3-0 lead with straight set wins from senior Julia Jones and freshmen Arianne Hartono and Natalie Suk and then sophomore Zalina Khairudinova clinched it at No. 6 singles.

“Solid start to the season,” head coach Mark Beyers said. “To shut out a team like Hawaii who just came off a top 30 win over Kentucky is impressive. We’ve had some great practices, but you never know what to expect that first match out. We did a good job closing out some close first sets and didn’t let them back in to the match.”

Jones, ranked No. 20 in the nation, showed why she has become one of the top players in the nation, winning a close first set 6-4 against Hawaii’s Cindy Nguyen and then dominating the second set 6-1.

The fourth highest ranked freshman in the country at No. 33, Hartono defeated Viktoria Malova 6-4, 6-3 at No. 2 singles. Suk followed up with a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 4 against UH’s Paulina Petriskova.

Khairudinova finished off Rebecca Faltusz 6-3, 7-5 at No. 6 to clinch the win. Mai El Kamash beat Martina Kostalova 6-4, 6-3 at No. 3 singles and then Iris Verboven completed the sweep rallying from 7-1 down in the third set supertiebreaker to defeat Sarah Gealer 6-2, 4-6, 10-8 at No. 5.

“For us to beat them 6-0 and win five of them in straight sets is impressive,” Beyers added. We have a quick turnaround to play another tough team, Washington, tomorrow. These are the type of matches we need to get better and to see where we are. Hopefully we’ll be able to play well and get a win against a good team to go 2-0 and come back home undefeated.”

The Rebels and Huskies will square off at 3 p.m. CT Saturday.

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