COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M women’s tennis team won the last two matches standing to stun No. 14 Arkansas, 4-3, in a match that lasted over four hours at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.

“This team has really needed a win like this all year long,” A&M coach Bobby Kleinecke said. “It was really hard at the end getting it. I think the players tightened up a little bit, but luckily we came out with. Part of it is just because we wanted it so bad and needed it so bad.”

The match came down to a battle of ranked opponents at the No. 1 court. A&M’s 63rd-ranked Elzé Potgieter and Arkansas’ 55th-ranked Anouk Tigu had split their first two sets, and Potgieter held a 4-2 lead in the final set at the time when teammate Morgan Frank finished off her match at the No. 2 line to tie the team score at 3-3. With all eyes on the No. 1 court, Tigu made a comeback and tied the set at 4-4. Potgieter then broke serve to take a 5-4 lead and then put herself ahead triple-match point in the ensuing game. Tigu fought back to get within 40-30 before hitting into the net to set off the celebration by the A&M players.

Frank had set up the heroic ending for Potgieter with late comebacks of her own. Frank found herself trailing Kate Lukomskaya, 6-5, in the first set at the No. 2 line but then tied the score to force a tiebreaker. Frank scored the first five points in the tiebreaker en route to a 7-3 win to take the first set.

The second set had a similar ending with Frank forcing a tiebreaker after being down, 6-5. Frank, ranked 111th in the nation in singles, then won the first three points of the tiebreaker and never looked back. She won the second tiebreaker by the identical 7-3 score to run her winning streak to nine, one shy of her career high. More importantly, Frank kept the Aggies alive by knotting the match at 3-3.

“Elzé has been waiting to be that last match on the court for four years now, and so I’m really happy that she finally got that chance, that opportunity, and then came away with the win on top of that,” Kleinecke said. “She and Morgan did a great job finishing out this match for us.”

A&M scored the first point in the match after sweeping the doubles matches. Stephanie Davidson and Frank won the first match for the Aggies, winning three consecutive games to close out an 8-3 victory over Lukomskaya and Kelsey Sundaram at the No. 2 line.

A&M’s Christ Liles and Sheri Oliver trailed Stephanie Roy and Valentina Starkova, 4-3, in a tightly contest match at No. 3 before the Aggie duo reeled off four consecutive games to build a commanding 7-4 lead. The teams then held serve for the remainder of the match, with A&M winning 8-5 to clinch the point for the Aggies.

Potgieter and Nazari Urbina came back from a 4-2 deficit against Arkansas’ 54th-ranked duo of Claudine Paulson and Tigu and took their first lead at 7-6. The Razorbacks held their serve to tie the score at 7-7 before A&M won the next two games to complete the sweep. It marked only the second time the Razorbacks lost all three doubles matches this season.

Sundaram tied the score for the Razorbacks to begin singles, defeating Lauren Santacroce, 6-3, 6-1 at the No. 5 line. Urbina, ranked No. 67, regained the lead for A&M and ran her winning streak to eight with a 6-2, 6-2 win against Emily Carbone at No. 3, but Paulson quickly tied the score for the second time with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Olivier at the No. 6 position.

Roy then gave the Razorbacks their first lead of the match, holding off Liles, 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, at No. 4 to put Arkansas up, 3-2. All eyes then turned to the top two courts, where some intense battles were occurring, but A&M managed to come out winners in both matches to clinch the much-needed victory and even its record at 5-5.

“This was a great college match,” Kleinecke said. “I give a lot of credit to Arkansas. They never gave up. They kept fighting. We took all three doubles matches, and they came out fighting then. I knew they would. I didn’t get anything that I didn’t think we would get.

“I have a lot of respect for the fight that they showed, and I have a lot of respect for the heart that our team showed with losing the matches that we’ve lost this year so close, and then to come away with the win tonight, we needed this bad.”

The match was the final tune-up for Big 12 Conference play, which the Aggies begin Friday at home against Kansas at 4 p.m. The match against the Jayhawks is part of an A&M tripleheader with the Aggie men’s team, which hosts Lamar and No. 24 Pepperdine at noon and 6 p.m., respectively, at the Mitchell Tennis Center.

Live scoring of all A&M women’s tennis matches is available at AggieAthletics.com.

Texas A&M 4, (#14) Arkansas 3
March 17, 2010
George P. Mitchell Tennis Center
College Station, Texas
Attendance: 278

Singles
1. (#63) Elzé Potgieter (TAMU) def. (#55) Anouk Tigu (UA), 6-3, 2-6, 6-4
2. (#111) Morgan Frank (TAMU) def. Kate Lukomskaya (UA), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (3)
3. (#67 Nazari Urbina (TAMU) def. Emily Carbone (UA), 6-2, 6-2
4. Stephanie Roy (UA) def. Christi Liles (TAMU), 7-5, 6-2, 6-1
5. Kelsey Sundaram (UA) def. Lauren Santacroce (TAMU), 6-3, 6-1
6. Claudine Paulson (UA) def. Sheri Olivier (TAMU), 6-4, 7-5

Doubles (A&M wins the point)
1. Potgieter/Urbina (TAMU) def. (#54) Paulson/Tigu (UA), 9-7
2. Stephanie Davidson/Frank (TAMU) def. Lukomskaya/Sundaram (UA), 8-3
3. Liles/Olivier (TAMU) def. Roy/Valentina Starkova (UA), 8-5

Order of finish
Doubles: 2, 3, 1
Singles: 5, 3, 6, 4, 2, 1*
*Clinched match

Team records
Texas A&M: 5-5
Arkansas: 12-5