Rice clinches Razorbacks’ upset of Auburn in SEC tournament

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Arkansas earned the doubles point with ease and then added three timely singles wins, including the clincher from freshman Tatum Rice at No. 5, to defeat No. 19 ranked Auburn on Thursday in the second round of the 2018 Southeastern Conference Women’s Tennis Tournament at the Dr. Robert L. Barksdale Tennis Stadium.

With the win, the No. 11 seed Razorbacks (9-15, 3-10) advanced to the tournament’s third round and will play No.

7 ranked and No. 3 seed South Carolina

(19-5, 11-2) at 11 a.m. today.

“It’s just fantastic to see our players continue to grow and compete so hard in this part of the season,” Razorbacks head coach Michael Hegarty said. “Every time we play Auburn it seems to go down to the wire and this was such a clutch performance by the whole team.”

Arkansas led the Tigers (20-10, 8-5), 3-2, with the match in the hands of Rice at No. 5 and sophomore Jackie Carr at No. 6.

Rice, of Lakeside, saved seven match points before finally earning the dramatic win 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (8-6) over Auburn’s Taylor Russo, which lifted the Razorbacks to their fourth victory over Auburn in the last six tries. Rice lost the first set, bounced back in the second set, trailed 6-5 in the third and was down two match points at 40-15 before getting the points she needed to force

the tiebreaker. Down 6-2 in the tiebreaker, she went on a six-point run to capture the victory.

“Tatum let two match points slip in yesterday’s match, but today, all she needed was one,” Hegarty said.

Thursday’s match marked the fourth consecutive 4-2 or 4-3 decision over the last two seasons between the Razorbacks and Tigers.

Other Razorbacks who contributed victories Thursday were sophomore No. 50 Giulia Pairone at the top spot, who improved to 13-5 this spring, and junior No. 89 Ana Oparenovic at No. 2.

The tandem of junior Agne Cepelyte and sophomore Natsuho Arakawa clinched the doubles point at No. 3 after No. 40 Oparenovic and Rice scored a win at the top spot to better their spring record to 13-5.

Arkansas topped No. 14 seed Missouri 13-17, 0-13) in the first round on Wednesday. The Razorbacks surrendered the doubles point, but used four consecutive singles victories in straight sets to secure the overall team win.

“Today was a very strong performance,” Hegarty said. “Tons of credit to Missouri, they have been so close to a lot more wins this year and their coaches and players are doing a great job. This conference just has no mercy sometimes.

“The past two seasons, we were at team match point on the eventual national champions (Vanderbilt, 2016; Florida, 2017) and still we went a month both seasons where we couldn’t win a conference match. So, credit to both teams today. This was a quality match in the greatest league.”

Pairone provided the clinching victory at the top spot, 7-6

(7-4), 6-0. Mia Jurasic got the first singles win of the day at No.

3, a 6-1, 6-0 decision. Oparenovic then bested her opponent 6-4,

6-4 at No. 2 before Jackie Carr set up the clincher with a 6-4, 6-4 win of her own and her first-ever against a conference opponent at No. 6.