The Alabama women’s tennis team opened its season at the 38th annual Debbie Southern Furman Fall Classic in South Carolina over the weekend. Three Crimson Tide players captured a win in singles, including first-year competitors Addison Bowman and Amina Salibayeva.
Bowman and Salibayeva had their college debut in singles matches, while Maria Andrienko came back strong in singles once again for another season. Andrienko and Bowman, a senior and freshman duo, partnered up to compete in the tournament’s doubles matches, which is an area where Andrienko has historically excelled.
After dropping three singles and two doubles matches on Friday, Alabama fought hard to bounce back on Saturday with singles victories from all three competitors.
Andrienko competed on Saturday afternoon against Carolina Troiano from Mississippi State in a close back-and-forth match. Andrienko took the first set 7-5, but ran into trouble in the second set. The set eventually went to a tense tie-breaker after the score reached 6-6, where Andrienko ousted Troiano 10-8, securing the win for Alabama.
Bowman claimed her first victory against Texas Tech player Mariia Hlahola while wearing crimson, winning in three sets. The first set easily went to Bowman 6-2, while the second set went less than favorably, with Hlahola winning 1-6. In the third set, Bowman struck back and won 6-3.
Salibayeva lost her first set 4-6 to competitor Nicole Sifuentes of Indiana. Despite this, she continued to put up a strong fight and was able to make a significant comeback. She won the overall match after securing the second two sets 6-3 and 6-2.
The team closed the tournament out on Sunday by once again dropping all three singles sets. This ended their first tournament with an overall score of 3-6 in singles and 0-3 in doubles.
Alabama will travel to North Carolina to compete in the ITA All-American Championships September 20-28.
