Elite! Again! Singles success sends #4 A&M to Athens
On a cloudy day at the Mitchell Tennis Center, No. 4 Texas A&M Women’s Tennis aimed to reach its fifth-straight Elite Eight.
Despite losing the doubles point for the second match in a row, Mark Weaver’s team answered the call once again and responded to adversity. They reverse-swept No. 13 USC 5-1 with a rare double clinch, as Mia Kupres and a legendary class of seniors put a bow on their final home match.
“I’m so proud of the team,” Kupres said about A&M’s continued success reaching the final site. “It’s a big testament to how hard we work and our coaches, they set such a high standard with the effort they demand from us day in and day out, and that’s how we’re able to put ourselves in this position year after year because we work so hard.”
The story in doubles was A&M’s inability to win 40-40 deuce points. It felt like there were close to a dozen deciding points across all three doubles matches, and hardly any went A&M’s way.
Lucciana Perez and Kupres on Court 1 were the main victims of that harsh reality, losing five deuce points on their way to a 6-2 loss at the hands of USC’s Lily Fairclough and Krisha Mahendran.
“We played a good team in doubles,” Kupres said. “We lost like five deuce games. It was a matter of a few points.”
The Trojans then cleaned up Court 5, 6-4, to take the doubles point and put the Aggies in a hole they have become very familiar with over the course of this postseason.
“It was the same speech as the last match,” Weaver said. “We just had to send a statement in all six singles matches, and for the most part, we did. We had six girls competing for every point, being tough out there, and being warriors. It was a great tennis match.”
You can never kill the heart of a champion. With national championship experience and deep postseason runs coursing through the veins of this roster, the Aggies wouldn’t let early adversity stand in their way.
For the second match in a row, they responded emphatically.
“Great composure,” Weaver remarked on what stood out to him about his team’s response. “The good news is we’ve been in this situation, while the bad news is we’ve been in this situation a little more times than I’d like. But we’ve had good composure throughout the season.”
The Aggies turned to their star Perez, the SEC Player of the Year, who handled her opponent 6-1, 6-1 on Court 1 with great composure to get the Aggies on the board.
As Perez won her match, the momentum started to flip in favor of the Maroon & White.
Next, it was Violeta Martinez on Court 5, as the Illinois transfer took care of business against her former Big Ten foe, 6-1, 6-2, to put Texas A&M up, 2-1.
Ilinca Amariei on Court 3 and Daria Smetannikov on Court 6 both got within one game of clinching the win multiple times for the Aggies, but USC counter-punched to extend their season each time.
The battle on Court 3 was the first to end, as Amariei finally put away USC’s Emma Charney 6-4, 7-5 in an absolute war.
Up 3-1, the Aggies were now a point away from clinching another Super Regional win and their fifth straight Elite Eight appearance.
They’d have to find that win in the third set on either Court 2, 4 or 6, as Kupres, Reed, and Smetannikov all found themselves in clinching situations over the span of 30 minutes.
With the match extending well past three hours in playing time, it was clear the Aggies’ conditioning would be the difference on Friday.
“We pay the price in the practices every day,” Weaver told his team. “We train hard. These matches are physical. They’re brutal matches, and the more we got into the trenches of this match, the more I knew it would be in our favor. We got stronger throughout the match. Our girls are very well conditioned, and it helps you in the biggest moments out there.”
As Reed and Kupres began to see the light at the end of the tunnel in both of their matches, it became a race to the finish line for who could clinch first. Both veteran leaders found themselves serving for the win at the exact same time on adjacent courts.
Reed was the first to officially win that race against her teammate, up 6-5 in the third set and battling back from down 40-0 to win it.
“We had the same score for the whole first set, half the second set, and then I went down 40-love, and I thought I was not going to finish my match,” Reed said. “To clinch it was unreal. I got to watch Mia’s last shot because I was just a second in front of her, and it was so great that she got to clinch too. We both just got to add an extra point on the board, which is really awesome.”
Not even five seconds later, Kupres wrapped up her final point, finishing off the third set with a 6-4 win, so technically, both points counted towards Texas A&M’s score.
“It was nerve-wracking because I really wanted to finish my match,” Kupres said. “I heard her point being over, so I couldn’t miss because this was my only chance. It was really awesome that we both got to finish and put a point on the board.”
On an afternoon marked by resilience, it was fitting that the only two singles courts A&M didn’t win the first set on were the two courts they clinched on at the exact same time.
Thus, the Mitchell Tennis Center delivered the rare 5-1 final score in a sport played to four points, which is something you don’t see every day.
Something you do see every day, however, is Weaver’s teams using their championship DNA to handle their business in the postseason.
That’s now five straight Elite Eight appearances, which leaves little to no room for debate that the Aggie women’s tennis is the most dominant program on campus right now.
Up next, they’ll head to Athens, Georgia, the final site of the NCAA Tournament, where they’ll play No. 5 North Carolina or No. 12 Michigan in the Elite Eight next week.
