The No. 28 ranked UK womens tennis team fell to the No. 11 ranked Auburn Tigers on Sunday afternoon by a final score of 6-1.  

The match started with the trio of doubles matches. The first match saw Kentucky’s Carlota Molina and Lidia Gonzalez against Auburn’s Carolyn Ansari and Madeline Meredith. Ansari and Meredith would see victory rather quickly against the Cats duo, winning by a score of 6-2.  

Match No. 2 would feature the No. 60 ranked doubles pair of Fiona Arrese and Florencia Urrutia for the Wildcats, versus the No. 44 ranked doubles pair of Selin Ovunc and Ariana Arseneault. Once again, the Tigers would win and clinch the doubles point to put AU up 1-0.  

From there, it was time for the singles matches. First, the Cats’ Girbau would look to upset the No. 60 ranked singles player Ovunc. Girbau would get blanked in the first set 6-0. The second set would be no different, as the Tiger won 6-2.  

The next match would be between the Wildcat Urrutia and Flach. Urrutia would pull away in the first set, besting Flach 6-2. The next set would be closer but would still end up with Kentucky winning. The score of this set would be 6-4, putting the Cats on the board, but still down 3-1.  

Next, the attention would shift to court three where the No. 104 ranked Ansari took on the sophomore Arrese. Ansari would take no time in taking the first set, swiftly defeating Arrese 6-1. She would then hold off Arrese in set two, winning 6-4.  

Already up by two, Auburn would look to extend it and stop a possible Wildcat comeback. The catalyst for the comeback would have to be junior MaialenMorante. She would face AU’s Yu Chen. Chen would take the first set 6-2, and then repeat the set to halt any advances that Morante could make.  

On court five, Auburn’s Axon looked to keep her team’s set streak going against the Wildcat Eades. Axon would fall to Eades in the first set 6-2, though she would take the latter two sets by matching scores of 6-2 and 6-2.  

This would leave it up to the matchup between No. 52 ranked singles player Arseneault and the No. 89 ranked Wildcat Carlota Molina. In the first set of this duel, Arseneault would take it, 6-2. The second set would be fiercely contested, with Molina coming out on top 7-6 (10-12). Arseneault would take the third set 1-0 (10-4) and take the last point to reach the final score of 6-1. 

The loss pushes Kentucky to 11-3 while Auburn would improve to 11-2. Next up, the Cats will host a doubleheader against Missouri and Bellarmine on Friday, March 20, with the first match against the Tigers scheduled to start at 12 p.m. and the latter match against the Bellarmine Knights scheduled to start at 4 p.m. EST.