MALIBU, Calif. — After honoring five-time All-American Savannah Broadus on Senior Day, the No. 26 Pepperdine women's tennis team made a push against the No. 42 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos before falling 4-2 on Thursday afternoon.
The three-hour, 10-minute battle featured just one three-set match, which went unfinished. Although two of the Pepperdine doubles teams fought back against the Gauchos (11-8, 6-0 Big West), UCSB won the doubles point and promptly went up 3-0 with two straight-set matches. Freshmen Alexia Harmon and Duru Söke came through for the Waves with blowout wins, yet UCSB All-American Amelia Honer clinched the match in a second-set tiebreak on court one.
Wanting revenge for a 5-2 home loss from earlier this season, the No. 42 Gauchos came out fighting from the first serve to the last. Yet neither team budged in the first set of singles play. Each team won three first sets and — despite what the scores indicated — all matches featured lengthy rallies and pivotal deuce points.
The match was a coin flip until the final hour. All at once, the Gauchos wrapped up straight-set wins on courts four and two, putting the Waves in danger of getting swept at home.
However, Alexia Harmon was the first Wave to emerge victorious with her 6-2, 6-1 win over Tyra Richardson on court three. Harmon extended her team-leading six-match win streak with a quick first set, which saw the freshman win five consecutive games after Richardson held serve in the opening game. Both players traded breaks in the second set, yet Harmon won out with a pivotal break point win in the third game and didn't look back in her lopsided win.
Ten minutes later, fellow freshman Duru Söke wrapped up her match with Carla Pacot on court five. In a match littered with minute-long rallies and very little pace, Söke looked like the sharpest Wave in singles play by bolting out to a 5-0 lead in the first set. Despite being broken in the sixth game, Söke broke back for the 6-1 first-set win.
The second set was played on serve until Söke broke Pacot in the sixth game. In Pacot's final service game, Söke had match points before the Pepperdine freshman broke Pacot at deuce for the 6-1, 6-2 win.
With Pepperdine back in the thick of things, the Waves needed to win both remaining matches to wrap up Senior Day. UCSB's Katarina Vayser pushed her match on court six to a third set, while Honer and Vivian Yang took the second set of their match to a tiebreak. Honer trailed for the majority of the tiebreak before her dazzling drop-shots and effective first serve started clicking for her. She wound up clinching the match 6-4, 7-6 (7), handing the Waves their first home loss of the season.
This weekend, the Waves travel south to face No. 57 San Diego on Saturday at noon before taking on UC San Diego in the nightcap at 6 p.m. All schedule updates can be found on the women's tennis team's schedule page at pepperdinewaves.com.
RESULTS
Singles
1. #11 Amelia Honer (UCSB) def. Vivian Yang (PEPP) 6-4, 7-6 (9-7)
2. Marie Weissheim (UCSB) def. #87 Anastasiia Grechkina (PEPP) 6-2, 6-3
3. Alexia Harmon (PEPP) def. Tyra Richardson (UCSB) 6-2, 6-1
4. Raphaelle Leroux (UCSB) def. Sebastianna Scilipoti (PEPP) 6-3, 6-2
5. Duru Söke (PEPP) def. Carla Pacot (UCSB) 6-1, 6-2
6. Liam Oved (PEPP) vs. Katarina Vayser (UCSB) 6-4, 4-6, 3-1, unfinished
Order of finish: 4,2,3,5,1*
Doubles
1. Amelia Honer/Ali Benedetto (UCSB) def. Duru Söke/Sebastianna Scilipoti (PEPP) 6-3
2. Anastasiia Grechkina/Alexia Harmon (PEPP) def. Lily Pradkin/Lucy Lu (UCSB) 6-4
3. Raphaelle Leroux/Marie Weissheim (UCSB) def. Liam Oved/Vivian Yang (PEPP) 6-4
Order of finish: 1,2,3*
