When the No. 3 doubles team of Emma Retter and Katherine Rist completed their 9-7 come-from-behind victory against Eastern Michigan University on Friday, little did they know that would be the highlight of the weekend.
After taking all three doubles matches against the Eagles, Ball State University (6-10, 1-3 Mid-American Conference) dropped four of the six singles matches in a 4-3 loss to Eastern Michigan. That was followed, by a 5-2 loss to the University of Toledo on Saturday.
Coach Kathy Bull said the problem is that the Cardinals aren't competing at all six singles positions.
"[Friday] we were outmatched and outclassed in three of them," Bull said. "It was four courts [Saturday] and we got to try to get that up to six and we're struggling with that."
The only singles player to win both matches this weekend was sophomore Emma Retter. She defeated EMU's Emma Czarnecki 6-4, 6-4 and Toledo's Jenny Belsky 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. She also won her only doubles match of the weekend.
After losing Friday, No. 1 singles player Sophie Quist rebounded with a three-set victory over Toledo's Myriam Cueva 2-6, 7-6 (7-4), 7-5, in a match that lasted nearly three hours. In the second set, Quist was up 5-1 before Cueva battled back to force a second set tiebreaker. In the third, Quist had a 4-1 lead before finally securing the victory.
"I never thought that after losing the first set, I'd be able to come back and still play good tennis," Quist said. "But, I thought in the third set she was lacking a little bit of energy and my mental attitude made me have more energy."
Stephanie Farrar and Polina Askerko won their doubles match against Toledo 8-3.
Against Eastern Michigan Friday, Christine Stromberg picked up a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Catherina Bestehorn. On Saturday, she won the first set against Nadia Zoubareva 6-4, but dropped the last two sets 6-4 and 6-3.
In the other two doubles matches against the Eagles, Sophie Quist and Haly Calderwood won 8-3 and Jennifer Pollack and Christine Stromberg battled back from a 5-2 deficit to win 9-7.
"We came back from some deficits and looked good in doubles," said Bull of the Eastern Michigan match. "But, boy, we didn't let that stay with us in singles. We let the other team fight back. This is classic Mid-American Conference. There are a lot of good tennis teams. We got the strategy, we got the conditioning and we got the game. Mentally, we got to get tougher."
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