Florida State’s men’s and women’s tennis teams each saw their seasons end on Saturday. Both squads were defeated in the second round of the NCAA Championship.
The men’s team was defeated by the No. 6 TCU Horned Frogs. TCU took control early by winning two of the doubles matches, and they grabbed leads on all singles courts except one. The lone Florida State victory came from redshirt junior Lucas Poullain, who defeated Guillermo Nunez in straight sets 6-4 and 6-4. Men’s tennis finished the year 18-12 overall, the same mark as last season.
It was much more competitive on the women’s courts, where the Seminoles battled with the No. 11 nationally seeded Auburn Tigers for much of the afternoon. Seminoles.com has the recap:
For the second straight match, the doubles point came down to a tiebreak on court one. While this time the tiebreak was a little more competitive, Julia Mikulski and Andrea Garcia toughed out a 7-6(8-6) victory over Auburn’s No. 14 Alizee Michaud/Taylor Russoto clinch the doubles point. The victory is the highest-ranked win and the third ranked doubles win on the year for the pair.
On court three doubles, Gabriella Castaneda and Daniela Schippers earned their 16th doubles victory as a pair this season 7-5 over No. 64 Georgie Axon/Caroline Turner, while Nandini Das and Ariana Rahmanparast suffered a rare loss 6-4 on court two.
In singles, the Seminoles continued to press the Tigers, taking first set leads on courts one, three, five, and six.
On their home courts, the Auburn team was able to rally from the early deficit and eventually turn the tide later in the match.
After trading points on courts two and six to put the Seminoles up 2-1, Auburn’s No. 155 Taylor Russo defeated Mikulski 2-6, 6-1, 6-1 on court three to tie the match at 2-2.
The pivotal point the match came on court one, with Castaneda leading by a set and locked in a second set with No. 17 Alizee Michaud.
Michaud went up 3-0 in the tiebreak, but Castaneda battled back to even it up. The two traded points all the way to 8-8, but Michaud was able to take the set 7-6(8) to prevent Florida State from taking a 3-2 lead.
After holding off match point on court one, Auburn’s Alannah Griffin defeated Garcia in a third set on court five 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Schippers lead 5-3 in the second set on court four, but fell 7-5, 7-5 on court four to end the match at 4-2.
Women’s tennis finished the year at 17-12, its most wins since the 2009 season.
Clint Eiland is a staff writer at The Daily Nole. Follow Clint on Twitter @ClintEiland. Tune in to 89.7 FM on Monday nights at 7 p.m. EST to hear Clint co-host the sports talk show Tomahawk Talk.
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