ATLANTA—The Oglethorpe men's and women's tennis teams celebrated senior day Sunday morning at Downing Howell Tennis Courts, but in the end lost both matches to visiting Rhodes in a pair of Southern Athletic Association dual matches. Oglethorpe lost 9-0 on the women's side and 6-3 on the men's side.
Prior to the match, the team honored Brianna Ali, Izzy Forster and Adeline Horton for the women and Cameron Burkes and Daniel Cohen for the men.
Oglethorpe nearly posted an epic comeback on the men's side. Trailing 2-1 after doubles, Rhodes turned in the first two winning decisions to take a 4-1 lead and move within a point of securing the match.
Figge Pernfors then won at No. 5 singles in straight sets to make it 4-2, but an 11-9 tiebreak score in the third set of Bailey Raymond's match at No. 2 singles saw Rhodes clinch the match. Raymond had played the longest and closest match of the day, losing 7-6 in the first, including 11-9 also in that tiebreak, bouncing back to win 7-5 in the second, then dropping the final set also in a breaker.
Raymond trailed 6-3 in the final set tiebreak, erased three straight match points to tie it at 6-6, erased two more match points at 7-6 and 9-8 sandwiching a match point of his own at 8-7, but lost the last two at 9-9.
Noah George and Zack Raymond were the last two to finish. George had a similar close and exciting finish like B. Raymond as he bounced back from a first-set tiebreak loss to win the second set big. George then narrowly fell 10-8 in the third-set breaker despite also erasing match points at 6-4, 6-5 and 8-7. He had a match point of his own at 7-6.
Following George's finish, Z. Raymond posted a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 6.
Women's Match
Forster and Salgueiro had the two closest matches at the top two spots, but both came up short in the third set. Forster won the first set, dropped the second, then went 6-4 in the third while Salgueiro dropped the first, won the second, then played a super tiebreaker in the third, falling 10-5.
Forster remains Oglethorpe's singles leader with six victories, all at the top spot. Ali is the leader this season for doubles wins, also with six.
Up Next
Oglethorpe hosts Centre and Sewanee next weekend in the final home matches of the regular season. The Stormy Petrels will then be on the road the weekend after that.
