Results
 
WEXFORD, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University women's team lost its first dual match of the season to Carnegie Mellon University, the 11th-ranked team in Division III, 6-1 Saturday at the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford, Pennsylvania.
 
While Saturday's match was the first of the season for The Rock, it was CMU's fourth as the nationally ranked Tartans improve to 3-1 with the win. The match featured several close decisions.
 
SRU was led in its opener by Nuria Martin Lopez, who earned a win from the No. 3 singles flight while also almost producing a victory at No. 2 doubles with partner Gabriela del Val del Toro.
 
Carnegie Mellon captured the doubles point with wins from the third and first flights to start the match as Zoe Angell and Sarah Yang first beat Tina Slovak and Georgie Lancaster, 6-1, followed by a 6-3 victory by Danna Taylor and Crystal Zhou against SRU's top team of Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez and Teddi Isherwood.
 
While the team doubles point was already decided, del Val del Toro and Martin Lopez nearly pulled off a victory from the second flight before ultimately losing 7-5 to Anna Chow and Divya Venkatarama.
 
CMU opened the singles portion of Saturday's contest with victories from the first and second flights where Yang defeated Gonzalez Sanchez (6-2, 6-3) and Taylor bested del Val del Toro (6-3, 6-2).
 
Venkatarama then clinched the Tartans victory with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 comeback win against Isherwood in the fourth flight.
 
Following a tight 7-6 (2), 6-4 win by Anika Joshi against Slovak in the sixth flight, Slippery Rock got its first point as Martin Lopez bounced back from a 6-4 opening-set loss to Angell in the third flight with consecutive 6-3, 10-4 wins.
 
The final bout of the day came from the fifth flight and was another back-and-forth match in which Manuela Van Cotthem was eventually able to outlast Lancaster for a 4-6, 6-3, 12-10 win.
 
Slippery Rock returns to competition at St. Bonaventure University Feb. 11 in what is another staple of SRU's traditional non-conference schedule.
 



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