Lopes fall to Wildcats at WAC Tournament

Friday, April 22

Beaumont, Texas

10 a.m.

Grand Canyon

Abilene Christian

Photo by: Jeff Kellum

4/22/2022 4:11:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Box Score

Top-seeded Lopes exit after 4-3, 1st-round loss

By: Jerob Moon

BEAUMONT, Texas — The Grand Canyon women's tennis team fell 4-3 in the first round of the WAC Tournament to Abilene Christian on Friday.

The top-seeded Lopes (8-10) won a competitive doubles point, but the eighth-seeded Wildcats (9-11) came back in singles with four wins to complete the upset.

In doubles, GCU battled ACU for over an hour and took the 1-0 lead with wins on the top two courts. Seniors Fabienne Schmidt and Autum Prudhomme finished first with a 6-3 win at Court 2 to give GCU the early advantage, but ACU countered with a 6-4 win over senior Jana Weiss and freshman Valentin Del Marco at Court 3.

The doubles point came down to the top court with All-WAC first-team duo Natasha Puehse and Santa Strombacha battling ACU's Allison Stewart and Sylvia Viljoen. The set was close throughout and the GCU pair trailed 5-4. The Lopes extended the set to 5-5 and won at 7-6 (7-5) to give the team an early 1-0 lead.

The Lopes dropped four first sets singles, but parlayed the other two into straight-set victories: a 6-3, 6-3 win by Puehse and a 6-2, 7-6 win by Strombacha at Courts 1 and 3, respectively.

After Puehse's win at Court 1, the score was still in favor of GCU at 3-2 with two matches left to play at Courts 5 and 6. Del Marco lost a close first set in a tiebreaker at Court 6 before falling 6-2 in the second set to tie the match at 3-3.

The final match was at Court 5, with Prudhomme attempting to overcome a first-set loss to ACU's Ileana Mocciola. The GCU fifth-year senior held a 4-3 lead in the second set found before dropping two games. Prudhomme won the next game to tie the set at 5-5, but Mocciola won the final two games to clinch the dual-match win for the Wildcats.

Despite the early exit in the conference tournament, the Lopes can be proud of their second straight WAC regular-season title and the eight All-WAC awards earned by the team this season.