No. 68 Tulsa Earns 4-3 Comeback Victory over Tulane

Sunday, March 26

New Orleans, La.

Noon

Tulsa

Tulane

Photo by: Campbell Rogerson

No. 68 Tulsa Earns 4-3 Comeback Victory over Tulane

3/26/2023 6:17:00 PM | Women's Tennis

NEW ORLEANS, La. — The University of Tulsa women's tennis team (11-6) competed for four hours and 43 minutes to erase a 3-1 deficit and prevail 4-3 Sunday over the Tulane Green Wave (7-9) in New Orleans.

The Golden Hurricane earns its 11^th win of the year and eighth in a row against Tulane.

The doubles point to TU thanks to 6-4 decisions by Laia Conde Monfort and Ana Naranjo Martinez at the No. 2 position and Amy Leather and Myroslava Zelenchuk in the No. 3 slot.

The Green Wave retaliated in singles play with wins at the No. 6, 4 and 3 positions. Tulane's win at No. 6 Singles was the only two-set decision of the day. With the Hurricane down 3-1, the fate of the match fell into the hands of Laia Conde Monfort (No. 1), Maria Berlanga Bandera (No. 2), and Ana Naranjo Martinez (No.5).

Berlanga struck first for the Hurricane with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Tulane's Kristen Borland in the second position. Now 12-3 in the dual match season, Berlanga has won six straight matches and eight of her last nine at the No. 2 position.

Monfort closed out the No. 1 position with a 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-1 score. She moves to 11-4 at the top of the lineup and has won nine of her last 11 head-to-head matches.

Tied at 3-3, the dual match came down to Naranjo at Singles No. 5. The sophomore from Michoacan, Mexico, fought through three sets and back-to-back 6-6 tiebreakers for four hours to prevail 5-7, 7-6(2), 7-6(3) over the Green Wave's Jiayun Zhu to complete the 4-3 comeback for the Hurricane. Naranjo has won four straight matches and seven of her last eight.

"I'm very proud of the way we battled today," said Head Women's Tennis Coach Dean Orford. "It wasn't pretty and we have some work to do, but it was a great fight."

Tulsa will return to action on Friday, March 31, in Denton, Texas, to take on North Texas (9-9) at 11 a.m. Then, the Hurricane will head to Dallas on Saturday, Apr. 1, for a conference battle with SMU (9-7) at 5 p.m.

Singles
1. Laia Conde Monfort (TU) def. Lahari Yelamanchili (TLN) 6-7(6-8), 6-3, 6-1
2. Maria Berlanga Bandera (TU) def. Kristen Borland (TLN) 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
3. Adelaide Lavery (TLN) def. Lily Hutchings (TU) 6-3, 1-6, 6-4
4. Charlotte Russell (TLN) def. Myroslava Zelenchuk (TU) 6-1, 2-6, 6-3
5. Ana Naranjo Martinez (TU) def. Jiayun Zhu (TLN) 5-7, 7-6(2), 7-6(3)
6. Brooke Theis (TLN) def. Lian Benedejcic (TU) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles
1. Yelamanchili/Russell (TLN) def. Berlanga/Hutchings (TU) 6-1
2. Monfort/Naranjo (TU) def. Lavery/Zhu (TLN) 6-4
3. Leather/Zelenchuk (TU) def. Borland/Theis (TLN) 6-4

Order of finish: Doubles (1,2,3); Singles (6,4,3,2,1,5)