Politixia
DENTON, Texas. — The No. 41-ranked Charlotte 49ers women’s tennis team fell in the semifinals of the 2023 Conference USA Championships with a 4-2 loss to No. 58 Rice on Saturday afternoon (April 22).
Charlotte (22-6) won the doubles point to take an early lead but the Owls (13-8) responded by winning the four required singles matches to advance. It’s the second time this season Rice has defeated CLT after the Owls squeaked out a 4-3 victory in Charlotte back in March.
The Green and White’s 22 victories this season are the second-most in a single year in program history and the four victories over ranked opponents in 2023 also set a program benchmark and nearly doubled the program’s total heading into the season.
Charlotte’s top two flights secured the point in doubles action, winning both matches by a score of 6-2. Margaux Maquet and Lucia Quiterio struck first in the top flight while Ruxi Schech and Kaavya Sawhney followed suit shortly after. Emma Wilkins and Lucie Petruzelova were close to finishing with a win as well, ahead 5-3 when the point was clinched.
Schech and Sawhney now have 61 wins together as a partnership to extend their program lead as the most any CLT duo has won together. Maquet and Quiterio sit third on the career doubles leaderboard after their work this season with 47 together after collecting 25 wins this season.
Maquet was also the only Niner to take her singles match with a 6-4, 6-3, victory in the third flight. With her two victories in the semifinals and a doubles win in the quarterfinals, she now has 147 in her career donning the Green and White, putting her in third place on Charlotte’s all-time career wins list.
Maquet won 48 of those 147 throughout the 2022-23 campaign for the fourth-most victories in a single season in Charlotte history. Petruzelova was close behind despite not winning a match on Saturday with 46 victories this season to tie for seventh place on CLT’s all-time single-season wins list with Quiterio from this year. Sawhney has 43 wins this season to tie for the 11th-most wins in a single season while Wilkins’ win total of 41 this year puts her in a share of 20th place in the record books, giving this year’s squad five players in the top 20 for single-season wins in program history.
As a team, Charlotte won 142 singles matches throughout the fall and spring seasons and 83 doubles contests for the most doubles victories in a single season and the second-most singles wins all-time in Charlotte women’s tennis history.
UP NEXT
Charlotte now awaits its fate in the 2023 NCAA Women’s Tennis Selection Show on May 1 on NCAA.com.
RESULTS
Doubles
- Maquet/Quiteiro (CLT) def. El Jardi/Zipoli (RICE), 6-2
- Sawhney/Schech (CLT) def. Budin/Trevisan (RICE), 6-2
- Wilkins/Petruzelova (CLT) vs. Orav/Schwartzman (RICE), 5-3, unfinished
Order of finish: 1, 2*
Singles
- Allison Zipoli (RICE) def. Ruxi Schech (CLT), 6-4, 3-6, 5-3, unfinished
- Federica Trevisan (RICE) def. Lucia Quiteiro (CLT), 6-4, 6-4
- Margaux Maquet (CLT) def. Diae El Jardi (RICE), 6-4, 6-3
- Darya Schwartzman (RICE) def. Lucie Petruzelova (CLT), 6-7 (7), 6-2, 6-0
- Maria Budin (RICE) def. Emma Wilkins (CLT), 6-0, 6-4
- Saara Orav (RICE) def. Kaavya Sawhney (CLT), 4-6, 6-1, 6-0
Order of finish: 5, 3, 2, 4, 6*
