FORT MYERS, FL – The No. 50 FGCU women's tennis team (4-4, 0-1 ASUN) dropped a hard-fought 4-3 match in its conference opener to UNF (5-6, 1-0 ASUN) Saturday evening at the FGCU Tennis Complex.
"Congratulations to UNF today, they played a tough match and gave us a tough battle starting with doubles," head coach
Courtney Vernon said. "We are going to grow a lot from tonight, that's number one. We have things we need to keep working on so we will learn from tonight's experience and continue to grow."
Beginning with doubles play, UNF was able to claim a 1-0 lead heading into singles. The Ospreys collected the first win on court No. 3 (6-1) and shortly after claimed the top court with a 6-4 decision.
FGCU was quickly able to erase the 1-0 deficit to tie the match as junior
Bridget Forster (Boca Raton, Fla./Florida Virtual School) collected a 6-2, 6-2 win on court No. 5. UNF went on to register the next two wins on court No. 2 and No. 3. Senior
Julia Ascúa (Santa Fe, Argentina/Domingo G. Silva) was able to come back from a first set 6-3 loss and produce a 6-2 win in the second but was edged in her final set 7-5.
The Ospreys claimed another close triumph on court No. 6 (6-1, 7-6) as junior
Maja Ornberg (Kil, Sweden/De la Gardiegymnasiet, Lidkoping) fought back from a 7-5 loss in her second set to take the third set 1-0 in a 10-5 tiebreaker. Junior
Sofia Perez (Alajuela, Costa Rica/Florida Virtual School) snagged FGCU's final singles win on court No. 4, defeating her counterpart in straight sets, 7-5, 7-5.
Up Next
FGCU will remain at home taking on Furman at 10 am Wednesday, Mar. 6.
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HEAD COACH COURTNEY VERNON
FGCU's women's tennis team is led by three-time ASUN Coach of the Year Courtney Vernon, who led the Eagles to back-to-back ASUN regular-season crowns in her fifth season in 2018. She has mentored her student-athletes into earning 56 ASUN All-Conference and All-Academic honors, including 2014, 2016 and 2017 ASUN Freshman of the Year as well as the 2016 and 2017 Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the 2018 Player of the Year. Vernon has led the Green and Blue to a 65-46 overall record (.592) and 27-6 conference record (.827) in her six years at FGCU.
