Alabama women’s tennis lost its first match of the season on Thursday night, falling 5-2 to Michigan State to drop to 6-1 overall.

“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ve got to get better,” coach Jenny Mainz said. “I think that the team fought hard all the way through in every position.”

The match between the Crimson Tide and Spartans was close from the start with the doubles matches. The No. 1 and No. 3 doubles pairings split their matches, leaving the No. 2 pairing, senior Alba Cortina Pou and freshman Sasha Gorchanyuk, deciding which team would win the first point. Michigan State was able to win the closely contested match, 7-5, and capture the early 1-0 advantage.

The Crimson Tide opened up singles play with four of the six players dropping their first set of their match.

“We lost four first sets in singles and that’s the bad news,” Mainz said. “We need a better start. We need to play more commandingly and more authoritatively from the beginning.”

Alabama was able to push all the first set loss matches into a third set.

However, Cortina Pou was the only player to win her match after dropping the first set. Freshman Isabella Harvison was the only other player to grab a point for the Crimson Tide.

Cortina Pou entered the week as the reigning SEC Player of the Week.

“[The award] was exciting, but it doesn’t change anything and you just come back to the court,” Cortina Pou said.

Cortina Pou said that this match pushed her out of her “comfort zone.”

“It was a good match because I had to be more aggressive than usual,” Cortina Pou said. “Usually, I’m on the counter attack, but it was cool to try new things and be more aggressive.”

Junior Moka Ito lost her first singles match of the season despite winning the first set.

The Crimson Tide resumes action on Saturday, Feb. 8, against Iowa State at noon and UT Martin at 5 p.m.