SFA Comes Up on Wrong End of 5-2 Decision at Central Arkansas

Sunday, April 15

Conway, Ark.

Noon

Stephen F. Austin

Central Arkansas

SFA Comes Up on Wrong End of 5-2 Decision at Central Arkansas

4/15/2018 6:33:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Box Score

Tiboldi and Kamal post singles wins for Ladyajcks

By: Charlie Hurley | Director of Athletic Media Relations

CONWAY, Ark. - Batting cold, windy conditions and forced to play through a pair of ill-timed injuries, the Stephen F. Austin women's tennis team came up on the wrong end of a 5-2 decision to Central Arkansas at the UCA Tennis Courts Sunday afternoon.

With the setback, the Ladyjacks have been taken out of the running for a spot in the 2018 Southland Conference Tournament.

"Extremely windy and cold conditions did not make it an easy day for us, but I was particularly proud of our spirit and fight against a very good team," said SFA head coach Jon McLaughlin. "We gave ourselves a chance to win the doubles point and gutted out two nice wins at the end."

Darinka Tiboldi and Nida Kamal were able to even up the doubles point with a 6-3 triumph over UCA's duo of Marli Van Heerdan and Pornpawee Pramethong at the number-one flight but the Sugar Bears took the lead for good when a 6-4 setback by Gabi Guilarte and Armelle Cerdan by Amiru Shimoguchi and Hee-Jin Oh on the third line gave the host squad the doubles point.

Kaja Ljubic, the Ladyjacks' leader in singles wins headed into Sunday's match, hit her knee during warmups and was forced to retire after falling behind Van Heerdan 6-1, 3-0 on the fifth singles line to push UCA's lead to 2-0.

UCA clinched the match when Guilarte fell to Pramethong 7-6 (5-0), 6-1 on the top line coupled with a 6-2, 6-3 loss by Cerdan to Shimoguchi in the fourth flight. Cerdan was also bitten by the injury bug, twisting her ankle in the second game of her singles match but played through the adversity.

SFA's deficit stood at 5-0 when QiLi Ma defeated Siân Payne 6-4, 6-3 on line three before Tiboldi broke up the shutout.

The sophomore posted a 6-3, 6-7, 10-5 triumph over Oh in number two singles and Kamal made it back-to-back singles wins for SFA by besting Rada Manataweewat 6-7, 6-4, 10-5 in number six singles.

Just three matches remain on the Ladyjacks' 2018 schedule and the first of those tilts is set to take place on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. in Texarkana, Texas. At that neutral site, the Ladyjacks will take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff in a match which was announced Sunday afternoon.

-SFA-