No. 19 LSU women’s tennis (8-2) hosted No. 31 Ole Miss (6-5) late Friday afternoon. Though the scoreboard displays a sweep, this match was way closer than that, as the doubles point ultimately decided everything.
Doubles started out rough, with the Tigers tied on Court One, and Courts Two and Three down by multiple points halfway through the matches. But just as it seemed like all hope was lost for the Tigers to obtain the doubles point, things began to shift in the other direction.
First, No. 14 Eden Richardson and Nina Geissler defeated No. 24 Sabrina Machalova and Alexa Bortles 6-3 to earn their first SEC win of the season. This came behind a great late-match rally, where the Tigers earned the final three points to win.
“Nina and I had a tough last few matches so it was good,” Richardson said regarding their performance. “We worked on what we did in practice this week and played some aggressive tennis.”
The ranked LSU duo has struggled at Court One this season, so a win against such a strong opponent is huge for their confidence.
The other courts avoided being eliminated for as long as possible and were both in position to tie the set score at 5-5 with game scores of 40-40. However, one by one, both courts lost that point, and doubles was over just like that.
That doubles point would hang in the back of everyone’s mind as the first sets of singles came to an end. Through the first sets, the Tigers held leads on three courts, and the Rebels did as well. LSU would need one of those losing courts to turn around if they wanted to come out of this with the win.
The losing courts were Courts One, Two, and Four, where No. 41 Taylor Bridges, No. 83 Safiya Carrington and Eden Richardson all struggled to get anything going in singles, and that ultimately didn’t change. With the match being clinched and the other courts stalling in the second set, it was only a matter of time before the Tigers not only lost but got swept.
Carrington was the first to fall, and the others would soon follow. With the match clinched at 4-0, the remaining courts were all stuck with leads, never to be finished.
That doubles point earlier proved to be incredibly important, as this team was about as evenly balanced as two teams can be. Eden Richardson agreed with that, believing the story would’ve been different with the doubles point in hand.
“A lot of girls were actually winning,” Richardson stated. “If we had the chance to play out, it could have been 4-3 to us if we just had that doubles point.”
The Tigers will have a chance for redemption against a team with a similar talent level, as they face off against No. 34 Mississippi State on Sunday. With a win there, this weekend’s record would even out, and they wouldn’t fall too far in the rankings.