Fifth-ranked Auburn women’s tennis team secured a 4-0 victory over No. 30 Ole Miss on Thursday at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center in Oxford, Mississippi. The win marks Auburn’s 20th of the season and keeps them undefeated in conference play.
Auburn head coach Jordan Szabo commented after the match, “Winning 4-0 on the road is never easy. They had a good crowd. We found a way to pull back in some doubles matches and build a bunch of leads. I really feel like the girls that were in battles were going to pull through. Now it’s time to get some rest, get on the road and get after it against LSU on Saturday.”
In doubles play, Ashton Bowers and Ekaterina Khairutdinova quickly defeated Beatrice Stagno and Brooklyn Olson 6-1 at the No. 3 position, extending their perfect record to 16-0 this season. Angella Okutoyi and Merna Refaat clinched the doubles point for Auburn with a 6-4 win at No. 2, marking their ninth victory as a pair this year. Auburn has not lost a doubles point in its first 21 matches of the season.
During singles competition, Auburn took four opening sets across the top three courts and at No. 6 singles.
At No. 6 singles, junior Ava Esposito beat Ichino Horikawa with scores of 6-1, 6-3, maintaining her undefeated dual-match record at 13-0 for the season.
Angella Okutoyi followed with her third straight-set singles win at No. 3 by defeating Brooklyn Olson 6-2, 6-1, improving her dual-match record to 10-2.
Ekaterina Khairutdinova clinched the overall match for Auburn by winning over Alice Soulie at No. 2 singles (7-5, 6-2).
With this result, Auburn improves to a season record of 20 wins and one loss while remaining unbeaten (3-0) in conference play. The team has now won seven consecutive matches and all six road contests so far this year.
Auburn will next travel to Baton Rouge for a matchup against fourth-ranked LSU on Sunday at noon CT at the LSU Tennis Complex.
Singles results included unfinished matches between Emily Welker (Ole Miss) vs DJ Bennett (Auburn), Andrea Nova (Ole Miss) vs Merna Refaat (Auburn), and Riley Crowder (Ole Miss) vs Ashton Bowers (Auburn). Completed wins came from Khairutdinova over Soulie; Okutoyi over Olson; and Esposito over Horikawa.
In doubles action, Okutoyi/Refaat defeated Crowder/Soulie while Khairutdinova/Bowers beat Stagno/Olson; one match was left unfinished.
