UH was unable to grab a point in either of its matches against Texas Tech and BYU. | Oscar Herrera/The Cougar
Houston tennis lost its sixth and seventh straight matches over the weekend after it fell 6-0 to No. 26 Texas Tech on Thursday and 4-0 to BYU on Saturday in the team’s first-ever Big 12 matches.
Game 1
In doubles play, Texas Tech won the first two matches soundly despite sophomore duo Sophie Schouten and Sonya Kovalenko taking an early lead in their match.
Schouten would end up as the only Cougar to win a set in singles play, but her match would go unfinished due to the win having already been clinched for Texas Tech. Junior Maria Dzemeshkevich lost her match by a score of 6-1, 6-1 while senior Blanca Cortijo Parreno fared somewhat better in a 6-4, 6-1 loss.
Sophomore Gabriela Cortes put together a much improved second set but ultimately lost her match 6-1, 7-5 to clinch the win for Texas Tech.
Game 2
The Cougars dropped to 1-7 on the year in their 4-0 loss to BYU on Saturday.
Schouten and Kovalenko started things right and won their match 6-2, but the doubles point slipped away after Dsemeshkevich and senior Laura Slisane lost 6-0 and the duo of Cortijo Parreno and junior Elena Trencheva squandered a 4-3 lead to give the doubles point to BYU.
UH fought in some close singles matches before BYU ran away with the victory. Slisane lost in straight sets while Schouten was unable to come back from a 7-1 tiebreaker loss in her first set to give BYU a 3-0 lead.
Dzemeshkevich and freshman Nina Skoric each won a set in their matches, but Skoric’s eventual loss sealed the victory for BYU and ended the match.
UH will travel to Fort Worth to face TCU in its first Big 12 road matchup on Friday.
