DENTON, Texas (April 23, 2017) – The FIU women's tennis team (21-2) fell to the top-seeded Rice Owls, 4-1, in the finals of the 2017 Conference USA Women's Tennis Championship on Sunday.
Rice (18-5 and No. 37 in the latest Oracle/ITA Women's Tennis National Rankings) took an early 1-0 lead, winning the doubles point as
Mina Markovic and
Gabriela Ferreira fell to Savannah Durkin and Katherine Ip, 6-0, and
Nina Nagode and
Andrea Lazaro dropped a 6-2 decision to Lindsey Hodges and Wendy Zhang.
The Panthers drew even at 1-all as Nagode opened singles play with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Fernanda Astete. The victory for the senior was her 13
th of the season and 75
th of her career. The Owls regained the lead, 2-1, as
Maryna Veksler fell to Ip, 6-1, 6-2.
Markovic lost to Zhang, 6-4, 6-3, to give Rice a 3-1 edge. The Owls clinched the match and claimed this year's title with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 win for Durkin over Grib.
The loss snapped a school-record, 19-match winning streak for the Panthers as FIU suffered just its second defeat of the season.
Selections for the 2017 NCAA Women's Tennis Championships will be announced via NCAA.com on Tuesday, May 2, at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Fans are encouraged to follow the Panthers on Facebook (
Facebook.com/FIUWTennis) for all the latest FIU women's tennis news. Follow all of FIU's 18 athletic teams on Twitter (@FIUAthletics), Facebook (
Facebook.com/FIUSports), YouTube (FIUPanthers), and Instagram (FIUathletics).
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including FIU Arena and Riccardo Silva Stadium.
About FIU:
Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.
