Lopes Have Strong Showing Against Nationally Ranked Hawai’i

Thursday, February 26

Honolulu, HI

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Hawai'i

Lana Rinaldi

Photo by: Darryl Webb

Lopes Have Strong Showing Against Nationally Ranked Hawai’i

2/26/2015 11:19:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Face No. 43 San Diego State tomorrow at 2 p.m.

The Grand Canyon University women's tennis team (2-5) fell to No. 48 Hawai'i (4-4) today 5-2 at the UH Tennis Complex in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"The girls fell just short," explained head coach Greg Prudhomme. "We gave a nationally ranked team one of our toughest contests to date. We lost to this team pretty badly last year so to have their coach graciously say that he feels lucky that they beat us today was a high compliment."

In doubles, teammates Priscilla Annoual and Tatum Prudhomme earned a victory at the first spot, while Alexandra Petrzalkova and Silvia Tumova won their match on the second court to reward the Lopes with the point.

"The doubles got off to a great start," Prudhomme said. "We were able to clench it with two strong performances at one and two with the teams of Priscilla and Tatum and Alexandra and Silvia each winning their matches 6-2."

"We carried that momentum into the singles, having close fights on every single court—one through six," continued Prudhomme. "We haven't had a match like that against a nationally ranked team where we had the potential to win on every single court. We don't want to have these motivational talks for too much longer about how close we're playing great teams because we want to turn those into wins, but we're taking the natural progression in getting closer to these teams. The next step will be to get wins."

Lana Rinaldi earned a straight-set victory over Klára Pribylová 6-4, 6-0.

"We got a solid win out of a freshman at number six today—that was our lone singles win," said Prudhomme.

Annoual and Prudhomme each extended their match to three sets. Annoual faced Cindy Nguyen to fall short 5-7, 6-1, 6-3. Prudhomme was able to come back in the second set against Viktoria Malova to push the third. She tallied a final score of 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.

The other Antelopes also put up a strong fight against the Rainbow Wahine. Tumova nearly forced the third set in her match, extending the second set to a tiebreaker against Martina Kostalova. Lana Macukat also earned a tiebreaker in her match against Sarah Gealer. Petrzalkova fell in straight sets to Rebecca Faltusz 6-2, 7-5, but took the lead early in the second set for a chance at a third.

"Losing in three sets at one and two—those matches could have gone either way," explained Prudhomme. "Silvia and Alexandra each almost fought back to force a third set, getting a lead in the second. Lana also lost a tiebreaker at court five in the first set that could have gone either way, so the girls competed very hard."

"They fought until the last point and we're keeping our spirits up to keep learning and improving like we have been to apply it to the next match," concluded Prudhomme. "We're going to have a quick turnaround tonight. The girls are going to do some icing and we're going to get out there against another nationally ranked team tomorrow and give it another shot."

Grand Canyon will take on No. 43 San Diego State tomorrow in Honolulu, Hawaii at 2 p.m. A full recap of the match will be available at www.gculopes.com.

Hawai'i 5, Grand Canyon 2