March 6, 2011

BATON ROUGE, La. — The No. 27 South Carolina women’s tennis team fell 4-0 Sunday to LSU in Baton Rouge, La., to drop to 6-4 overall and 0-2 in SEC play. The Tigers are now 3-6 and 1-1 in conference play.

The Gamecocks lost the doubles points, dropping all three positions. Keri Frankenberger and Yvette Vlaar won first at the No. 2 spot with an 8-2 triumph over Josefin Andersson and Madeleine Saari-Byström. LSU clinched the point at court one with Kaitlin Burns and Whitney Wolf coming back from a 5-1 deficit to defeat Dominika Kanakova and Dijana Stojic 8-5. Ebie Wilson and Ariel Morton finished off doubles play with an 8-7 (7-0) victory at the No. 3 position.

In singles, the Tigers controlled play from the outset, quickly winning three matches to earn the victory. Morton finished first with a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Andersson at No. 6 singles, followed by Wilson downing Saari-Byström 6-3, 6-1. Wolf clinched the match at the top position with a 6-4, 6-1 win against Morgina.

With the team outcome decided, play on the remaining three courts was suspended due to South Carolina’s travel plans. At two, Stojic lost the first set to Burns in a tiebreaker 7-4 and trailed 4-1 in the second. Popova lost the first set to Frankenberger 7-5, but she had a 4-2 lead in the second set at No. 4 singles. Kanakova also lost her first set at No. 5 singles to Vlaar 6-3, but she was serving for the second set up 5-3.

South Carolina will resume SEC play Friday when it hosts Auburn at 2 p.m.

Singles
1. Whitney Wolf, LSU, def. #65 Anya Morgina, USC, 6-4, 6-1
2. Dijana Stojic, USC, vs. Kaitlin Burns, LSU, 6-7 (4-7), 1-4 susp.
3. Ebie Wilson, LSU, def. Madeleine Saari-Byström, USC, 6-3, 6-1
4. Katerina Popova, USC, vs. Keri Frankenberger, LSU, 5-7, 4-2 susp.
5. Dominika Kanakova, USC, vs. Yvette Vlaar, LSU, 2-6, 5-3 susp.
6. Ariel Morton, LSU, def. Josefin Andersson, USC, 6-0, 6-3

Order of Finish: 6, 3, 1

Doubles
1. Burns/Wolf, LSU, def. #54 Kanakova/Stojic, USC, 8-5
2. Frankenberger/Vlaar, LSU, def. Andersson/Saari-Bystrom, USC, 8-2
3. Wilson/Morton, LSU, def. Morgina/Popova, USC, 8-7 (7-0)

Order of Finish: 2, 1, 3