The Iowa women’s tennis team hosted No. 33 Oklahoma on Feb. 20 and fell in the matchup, 4-0.

The Hawkeyes started the day off with completely new doubles pairings at all three spots.

“We wanted to shake things up,” head coach Katie Dougherty said. “We got a great win at the No.1 spot with a brand-new team.”

It was a great win to start off. Freshman Anastasia Reimchen and senior Shelby Talcott (both lefties) defeated Oklahoma’s Morgan Chumney and Emma Devine (6-4). Iowa never trailed during the match, and Oklahoma was never closer than 2 points.

“It felt good, especially since this is the first time we’ve played together,” Talcott said. “I think sometimes combos just work, and it worked well this time.”

Reimchen was also pleased with the duo’s performance.

“It’s definitely something different having two lefties together, but it worked,” she said. “I think it would work well if we played together again, too. I think we could do some great things.”

In other doubles play, the freshman/senior team of Zoe Douglas and Morven McCulloch performed fairly well in their first appearance together.

The pair started out strong, going up 2-0. However, Oklahoma’s Lily Miyazaki and Simran Sethi seemed to catch fire, ultimately taking the match (6-3).

At the No. 3 doubles spot, senior Katie Zordani and junior Annette Dohanics were down 3-0 early. Despite fighting back and tying the match at 3, the senior/junior duo lost to Zita Engbroks and Christiana Brigante (6-4).

Even after losing the doubles point and being down 1-0 in the dual, Iowa had a lot of close play in singles.

McCulloch, Douglas, and Reimchen all forced third-set tiebreakers. However, each of these matches were abandoned when Oklahoma scored its third point in singles to give it a 4-0 lead, making it impossible for Iowa to win.

Reimchen lost her first set to Chumney (6-1). She came back in the second set with a strong 6-4 victory. The tiebreaker was 4-3 in favor of Oklahoma when the match was abandoned.

Douglas showed a lot of drive in her match as well. The first set wasn’t ever too far out of reach, but she lost (6-4). In the second set, she took a 6-3 win. The tiebreaker was 1-0 with Oklahoma’s Brigante leading when the match was abandoned.

McCulloch shut out Sethi (6-0) in the first set. The second set was recorded as 6-6, which forced a third set that was eventually abandoned with the score tied at 1.

Dougherty was pleased with the team’s ability to adapt to the new doubles pairings and their ability to fight back after being down a set. She said the taste of good competition early in the season is good for the team.

“We played very good competition,” Dougherty said. “We won some sets at the end and had some very close matches. I’m pleased overall. Obviously, the result isn’t what we want, but I think we competed very well against a good team.”

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