WACO, Texas – Kansas tennis jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, but it wasn’t enough as the Jayhawks fell to No. 30 Baylor, 4-3, at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas on Sunday.
Kansas began the match by fighting for the doubles point. On court one, the Kansas duo of Gracie Mulville and Jocelyn Massey forced their match against Baylor’s Zuzanna Kubacha and Sierra Berry into a playoff. The Jayhawks would go on to take the court one advantage at 7-6 (7-5).
After dropping court two, Kansas’s Jasmine Adams and Maria Titova secured the doubles point by battling to a 7-6 (7-4) over Baylor’s No. 66 Isabella Harveson and Liubov Kostenko. The two doubles victories gave Kansas a 1-0 lead heading into singles.
In singles, sophomore Heike Janse Van Vuuren was quick to extend Kansas’ leads to 2-0 on court five, as she defeated Kubacha in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1. The win made Van Vuuren 7-5 in singles play this season, including 4-2 in Big 12 Conference play.
Kansas continued the momentum when Massey secured the third point for the Jayhawks by defeating Baylor’s Zuzanna Frankowska, 6-2, 6-4. Massey improved to 4-7 on the season with two-straight wins against ranked teams.
Despite Kansas’ 3-0 lead, Baylor fought back with a win on court three as Kansas’ Kyoka Kubo fell to Kostenko, 6-3, 7-5. The loss was Kubo’s second in singles this season, as she fell to 12-2 overall.
The Bears drew closer with a win on court two, as Titova fell in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4, to Harveson. Moments later, Mulville fell in three sets to Miska Kadleckova, 2-6, 6-2, 1-6, which evened the score at 3-3 with one court remaining.
On court six, Adams started strong with a 7-6 first set win, but dropped set two to Danielle Tuhten, 6-3. In the final set, Tuhten pulled away to secure the win for the Bears, 6-4.
Kansas falls to 5-10 overall this season including 3-4 in Big 12 Conference play. The Jayhawks have played four consecutive ranked opponents, including a 5-2 victory over No. 35 BYU on March 16. Baylor improves to 15-6 this season and 7-1 in Conference play.
The Jayhawks return home for three matches this weekend at the Jayhawk Tennis Center, starting off with Saint Louis on Thursday, March 28 at 10 a.m. Kansas will play a second match on Thursday against No. 7 Texas at 5 p.m. followed by a matchup with No. 20 Oklahoma on Saturday, March 30 at 12 p.m. Admission to all matches at the Jayhawk Tennis Center are free.
