Hogs advance three to semifinals

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Returning letterwinners Anouk Tigu, Emily Carbone and Kate Lukomskaya each advanced to the semifinals of their singles draw on Friday’s opening day of the Razorback Classic at the George M. Bilingsley Tennis Center and Dills Indoor Stadium.

Sunny skies and cool temperatures greeted the teams in the morning but as the temperature rose into the afternoon so did the winds. Conditions are expected to remain much the same for play on Saturday.

“We had a really productive day in some swirly, difficult conditions,” Arkansas coach Michael Hegarty said. “That was extra useful to us because many of our spring matches will be in similar conditions. We won a lot of matches today and we had a very good spirit within those matches.”

Carobone and Lukomskaya each picked up back-to-back wins to earn their spots in the semifinals. Carbone won her first match by a 6-3, 6-2 margin over Antea Huljev of Kansas State followed by a hard fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Oklahoma State’s Sasha Belova. Lukomskaya beat Nataliya Shatkovskaya of OSU 7-6, 6-3 and Tulsa’s Rebecca Row in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. After a first-round bye, Tigu defeated another Golden Hurricane, Ewa Szatkowska 6-1, 6-1.

Also in the Red singles draw, freshman Kelsey Sundaram dropped her opening match 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 to Oklahoma State’s Iryna Khatsko.

Valentina Starkova was the lone Razorback to earn a victory in the first round of the White singles draw. Starkova defeated OSU’s Leyla Simmons 6-3, 7-5. Annemijn Koenen lost to Tulsa’s Caroline Beaulieu 7-6(5), 6-4 while Claudine Paulson fell to Alexandra Cristello from Oklahoma State 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Singles play continued with action in the Red and White Back draws. Sundaram won her match 6-0, 6-0 over Simmons while Paulson also picked up her first win of the tournament 3-6, 6-4, 10-5 over Kansas State’s Maryna Chumak. Freshmen Lindsey Gray and Adriana Nieto saw their first action of the day in the White back draw. Gray fell 6-2, 6-0 to Carmen Borau-Ramos of Kansas State as did Nieto 6-1, 6-4 to fellow Wildcat Petra Chuda.

Doubles play was also strong for Arkansas as two doubles pairs picked up wins in the opening round of play. Tigu and Paulson defeated Meredith Burns of Tulsa and Gray 8-0 while Lukomskaya and Sundaram won 8-3 over the Kansas State duo of Chuda and Chumak. Koenen and Nieto fell 8-5 to another Wildcat duo in Huljev and Nina Sertic. Carbone and Starkova played a strong match but lost to Tulsa’s Caroline Beaulieu and Jie Zeng 9-8.

Action continues on Saturday beginning with doubles play at 8:30 a.m. Central time. One round of singles will follow at its completion.

Download: Razorback Classic Results Day 1.pdf