RICHARDSON, Texas - The UT Dallas women's tennis team defeated #29 Whitman 5-2 in the First Round of the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament at the UTD Tennis Courts Friday afternoon.

The victory is the third in the opening round since 2019 for the Comets (13-6). They move on to face #2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the Second Round at 10 a.m. Saturday.

UTD started the match in exciting fashion taking all three doubles. After Rebecca Jackson and Saumya Vedula blanked Angel Le and Sascha Wells 8-0 at number one, Elyssa Ducret and Megan Zeng overcame a 7-4 deficit to come back and win in a tiebreaker 8-7 (7-4) in the second spot. Suzuka Nishino and Tisha Nakakes-Nguyen hung on at number three for an 8-7 (7-3) victory against Ilina Jha and Camila Tarpey-Schwed.

Jackson and Vedula tied the school record for most doubles wins in a season with 16, tying Kathy Joseph and Samantha Wong who also won 16 in 2021.

The Blues (13-6) earned the first two singles decisions with Tarpey-Schwed defeating Vedula at number two and Jha winning over Ducret at number four.

Jackson then defeated Jin Yu 6-1, 6-3 in the third flight. Nakakes-Nguyen, the American Southwest Conference Tournament Most Valuable Player last weekend, secured the win with a 6-2, 6-3 decision over Julia Longpre at number six.

(Story Courtesy of UT Dallas Sports Information)