Washington Beats #50 Arizona State, 4-1

Sunday, March 31

Seattle, WA

11:00 AM

University of Washington

Arizona State

Photo by: Red Box Pictures

March 31, 2019 | Women's Tennis

Box Score

SEATTLE --- No. 13 Washington picked up its 10th-straight win, pulling out a hard-fought 4-1 victory over No. 50 Arizona State at Quillian Tennis Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

The Huskies improve to 15-1 on the season and stay perfect in Pac-12 play at 5-0. The Sun Devils drop to 9-9, 3-5 in Pac-12 action.

"That match was a battle," said Head Coach Robin Stephenson. "There were so many critical points. Every match we played with a lot of belief. We had a match point to win doubles and lost it. Afterward I wanted to see how they would respond and how resilient they could be. We know that we are capable of winning on every court in singles so we put that behind us quickly and went right out and got to work."

The Huskies opened the match by splitting a pair of doubles matches, falling 6-2 at No. 3 doubles, but rebounding with a 6-3 win by Vanessa Wong and Zoey Weil at No. 2 doubles. The No. 1 match was an outstanding battle as Stacey Fung and Nika Zupancic battled the ASU duo of Lauryn John-Baptiste and Ilze Hattingh--the No. 2 ranked doubles team in the country. UW was able to jump out to a 4-2 lead, winning the game after rallying from a 40-0 deficit. ASU would tie up the set at 4-4, but the Huskies took the next game to go up 5-4 and held a match point with the game tied at 40-40. But the Sun Devils won the point and took the next to games to clinch the doubles point with a 7-5 win.

In singles play, Wong shook off her first singles loss in a dual match on Friday with a dominating performance at No. 2 on Sunday, beating John-Baptiste--ranked No. 87 in the latest ITA rankings--by a 6-3, 6-1 score to level the match. Over on court 6, Zupancic got off to a fast start with a 6-1 first-set win, but trailed 4-1 midway through the second. She rallied, though, winning the next four games to go up 5-4 and holding on for a 7-5 win. That would put the Huskies up 2-1 overall.

The matches at No. 3, 4, and 5 singles all found their way to a third-set tiebreaker. Natsuho Arakawa won her first set at No. 4 6-4, but dropped after leading 4-1 in the second, lost a tiebreaker 7-6 to force a third set. In that set, she jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead and cruised from there to a 6-3 lead to put the Huskies up 3-1. Over at No. 5, Sedona Gallagher lost a disappointing first set tiebreaker, the rallied from a 4-2 deficit in the second to win 7-5 to level the match. She dominated in the third set, going up 5-1 before clinching the match for Washington with a 6-2 third set win.

Katarina Kopcalic also rallied from a first-set loss at No. 3 singles, winning 7-5 in the second set and held a 5-2 lead in the third when the match was clinched. Fung was also headed to a third set at No. 1 singles when the match was clinched, winning the first set 7-5 but losing 6-4 in the second.

"Closing that match out was the hardest thing to do," said Stephenson. "We had match point on doubles, lost it. We had a match-point at No. 4 in the second set and lost that. For her to bounce back and win that third is just a testament to her hard work and her belief in herself. We put ourselves in position to win on every court. Sedona was down a set and down 5-4, but made up her mind that she wanted this to be her day."

"I had a very rough first set, but I figured it out in the second set and tried to slow everything down and took control of the match," said Gallagher. "It was really helpful to have Natsuho (Arakawa) and Nika (Zupancic) on either side of me since Natsuho is so positive and Nika is always jumping around, so they can transport some of that energy to my court. We were so excited to get out here and wanted to win. We have such a special team and want to win for each other."

"It's my job to bring positive vibes to everyone," said Arakawa. "Today was a pretty tough match and my condition was not my best, but I know I had to fight through and be patient to win this match. I think everyone here is putting their effort into the match and whenever we lose a doubles match, we bounce back so quickly. I'm so proud of everyone fighting through and never giving up. Everyone stayed disciplined and care about each other, so that's why we are having such good success so far."

Washington begins an incredibly tough schedule to end the regular season, facing five-straight ranked teams including four teams ranked in the top 16 in the latest ITA rankings. First up is a trip to the Bay area to face No. 15 Cal on Friday followed by a match at No. 7 Stanford on Saturday. The Huskies then return home to for their final two home matches, taking on No. 16 USC on Friday, April 12, then No. 11 UCLA on Sunday, April 14, before wrapping up the year at No. 35 Washington State on April 20.