Alabama women’s tennis suffered its first defeat of the season against No. 21 UCF by a score of 6-1.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” coach Jenny Mainz said. “We fought hard and had opportunities. When you are playing a good team like this, you have to take them.”

In the doubles matches, the Crimson Tide fell behind quickly 1-0, but still was battling on courts No. 1 and No. 2. Senior Andie Daniell and sophomore Moka Ito broke serve late in the set against the 16^th-ranked doubles pair in the nation and were on track to win. Unfortunately for Alabama, UCF won a service break on court No. 2 and controlled the rest of the match to take the doubles point from Alabama, a first for an opponent this season.

“The doubles point could have gone either way,” Mainz said. “We were about to close it out on No.1, but we couldn’t do it on No. 2. That’s when the deuce points are misleading because we can’t get too high or too low.”

UCF continued its momentum from the doubles matches into singles play. Alabama lost the first set on all six courts and could not rebound with the Crimson Tide only forcing two matches into the third set. Junior Alba Courtina Pou won her match 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-6) and No. 47 Daniell narrowly lost to UCF’s top singles player who is ranked 34^th in the nation 3-6, 6-3, 4-6.

“I told Alba to swing away and play your game,” Mainz said. “At 2-1 in the second set, she relaxed in a good way and found her stride. In the third set tiebreaker, she closed it out by being aggressive.”

Alabama will return to action Sunday morning against East Tennessee State University at 10 a.m.