Long Beach State women’s tennis lost its first game of the regular season 3-4 at the hands of the University of San Diego, with many players digging themselves into holes they could not get out of.
Long Beach’s (6-1) decision-making has been a lingering issue that was fully exploited Thursday. San Diego (5-2) was aware of this inconsistency in its opponents’ overall games and did its best to expose the issue.
“We were trying to work on heavy spins and consistency,” head coach Jenny Hilt-Costello said. “And the quick unforced errors have been costing us matches.”
This problem was apparent in doubles where the pairing of Emma Bardet and Zara Lennon lost 6-1. The other doubles loss came from Wiktoria Rutkowska and Dominique Meyer who lost 6-3.
In singles, the same players were having trouble in their matches, with Bardet being the only one to overcome her mistakes and outplay her opponent in three sets 6-7, 6-4, 10-4. Rutkowska couldn’t get past the mistakes she was making and lost both her sets 6-0, 6-4.
Meyer and Lennon lost their matches in a more competitive fashion, but could not follow the game plan enough to pull away with wins.
“I didn’t play too bad but I did miss on the important points,” Lennon said. “I’m trying to grow [from these mistakes] moving forward.”
The 49ers did have some silver linings that came from Natalia Munoz and Lalita Devarakonda. Munoz was able to win her match in two sets 6-3, 6-2 and Devarakonda as well 6-1, 6-3.
The 49ers have an 11 a.m. matchup Sunday against conference rivals Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at home.