On Senior Day, with the match tied 3-3 after the completion of singles matches, the senior doubles team of Martina Banikova and Elna de Villiers delivered the upset to No. 16 LSU (13-8, 3-6 SEC) for the Mississippi State women’s tennis team (10-8, 1-8 SEC).”It was a good feeling,” Banikova said of winning the first SEC match of the season. “I was mad that we were losing. We were behind, but we never stopped fighting.”
Upon losing 3-1 to signal Banikova’s last home match, de Villiers and fellow senior Daniela Juskova staged a massive comeback for State’s first conference win since defeating Alabama 5-2 in 2007. The 27-game SEC losing streak is the longest of current MSU coach Tracy Lane’s tenure.
“We played like a different team today,” Lane said. “I told our girls before the match that if we want to win, we have to forget about the past and look to the future. Today, it is like we started a new season, and I am so proud of the way we fought today.”
The match started with the Bulldogs and Tigers trading points on courts one and two. LSU’s No. 17 nationally-ranked singles player Megan Falcon took back-to-back 6-0 sets to defeat Banikova. MSU responded with freshman Olesya Tsigvintseva taking a straight set win from Mykala Hedberg.
LSU then knocked off State’s other two seniors to build a 3-1 lead and put the Tigers on the brink of clinching the match.
In order to force deciding doubles matches that would serve as the clinching points of the match, the Bulldogs needed to rally from a set down in both remaining singles matches. MSU junior Valeriya Makarycheva took the final two sets of her match with an apparently tired Staten Spencer. The equalizing point came from junior Radka Ferancova, who won back-to-back tiebreakers to take sets two and three over LSU’s Whitney Wolf.
“It was a come from behind day. [Ferancova] came back, but the same scenario has happened to her a lot this season where she was up then the other player rallied,” Lane said. “I am just very proud of the girls. All nine of them did what we needed them to do today.”
As singles play concluded, rain moved over the MSU campus, and the match was moved indoors to the two-court McCarthy Gymnasium for doubles.
Lane said she knew the Bulldogs had the momentum and had to seize the match.
“After the [Ferancova] win, we had the upper edge, but we knew that they had bigger serves,” Lane said. “On the indoor surface, that matters a lot. We had momentum, and we had to stay aggressive.”
LSU gained an early edge in both matches through superior play at the net. LSU’s tandem of Hannah Robinson and Wolf took five of the first seven games from MSU’s pair of freshman, Natalia Mayuk and Tsigvintseva, while LSU’s Falcon and Hedberg raced to a 6-3 lead over Banikova and de Villiers.
Both Bulldog teams rallied, determined not to let the closest the team had come to an SEC victory this season become a wasted opportunity, and both pairs forced tiebreakers to decide the match.
Mayuk and Tsigvintseva caged the Tigers 7-1 in the tiebreaker, completing their comeback and setting up the seniors to finish their careers at MSU in spectacular fashion.
Banikova enjoyed revenge over Falcon from their singles encounter when the Bulldogs took a 7-2 victory in the final tiebreaker game.
De Villiers said she thought the fact it was her last home tennis match made the victory special.
“It felt really amazing,” de Villiers said. “I have never enjoyed tennis more than I did during doubles today. We have worked so hard that it is great to finally win.”
The Bulldogs finish the 2009 regular season next weekend at Ole Miss.