In a rematch of its 2024 NCAA Tournament First Round, the Notre Dame women’s tennis team outdueled the Xavier Musketeers for a 5-2 victory on Sunday afternoon at the Eck Tennis Pavilion.
Since the start of the spring season exactly one month ago, the Irish are now 10-1 in duals with their lone defeat coming 6-1 at the hands of the No. 17 Ohio State Buckeyes back on Feb. 7.
The Musketeers, who have transformed into one of the nation’s premier mid-major programs under head coach Doug Matthews, fell 4-3 to Notre Dame in last season’s Ann Arbor Regional. Xavier has captured four consecutive Big East Championships but entered play at 4-3 with a younger roster than years past.
On the courts, Notre Dame claimed the highly-contested doubles point despite losing 6-4 on Court 1. Xavier’s best doubles pairing of junior Abby Nugent and freshman Clara Owen are ranked 22nd nationwide and competed at the Fall NCAA Individual Championships, and they won their set over senior Carrie Beckman and junior Bojana Pozder. Behind the strong play of tandems Akari Matsuno and Bianca Molnar on Court 2 and Rylie Hanford and Maria Olivia Castedo on Court 3, the Irish were able to squeak out the key first point.
After Hanford, the junior from Chesterfield, Ohio, cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 victory on singles Court 5 and Owen captured her second victory of the day for the Musketeers on Court 6, the Irish led 2-1 needing just two more points from the remaining four close singles matches to find victory.
In a back-and-forth, three-set affair on Court 2, Pozder, the Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin native, got revenge on Nugent in a 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 victory to pull the Irish within one of the win.
Despite Xavier freshman Madeleine Rexroat’s key service break to win 7-5, 7-5 on Court 3, the crucial moment of the matches came when Notre Dame took two first-set tiebreaks on Courts 1 and 4 in the span of five minutes. The Irish would go on to win both of those matches, with Matsuno, the 71st-ranked singles player in the country, winning on Court 1, and Molnar winning on Court 4.
The Irish will now turn the calendar into ACC play, as their next match will take place on Friday, Feb. 21, when they travel to Dallas, Texas, to battle the SMU Mustangs. Friday’s contest with Mustangs, who sit at 5-4 off back-to-back wins over Houston and Rice, is set for a 4 p.m. start at the Styslinger/Altec Tennis Complex.
