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Women’s Tennis Travels North for Saturday Matinee
Women's Tennis  . 

Women’s Tennis Travels North for Saturday Matinee

Winston-Salem, N.C. – ­No. 24 South Carolina women’s tennis continues non-conference play on Saturday, traveling to Winston-Salem, N.C., to take on Wake Forest. The match will take place Wake Forest Tennis Center at 11:00 a.m.

Admission to the match is free and those not in attendance can watch live here and view live stats here.

Gamecock Notables

  • South Carolina is 5-1 on the season and is coming off of a 6-1 romp of rival Clemson. The Gamecocks have a ranked win over then-No. 23 Georgia Tech and their only loss of the season came at the hand of then-No. 4 Georgia.
  • South Carolina is the only school in the country with two players ranked in the ITA Singles top-5 in No. 3 Ayana Akli and No. 4 Sarah Hamner. Graduate Shahar Biran also appears in the singles rankings at No. 108.
  • 3 Akli is 17-5 overall this season with ten of her wins coming over ranked opponents. In dual play she is 4-1 from the top of the lineup.
  • 4 Hamner is also 17-5 overall this season and has 12 ranked wins. She is a perfect 4-0 in dual singles matches this season from the No. 2 position.
  • Biran has eight singles wins on the season and a 3-1 record from the No. 3 spot in the lineup.
  • Also with a strong record this season is junior Misa Malkin who holds down the No. 4 positin for th Gamecocks. She is 4-1 in dual matches and 11-9 overall.
  • In doubles, Akli is ranked twice – at No. 27 with Olympe Lancelot and at No. 28 with Hamner.
  • Akli and Lancelot are 4-1 from the top of the dual lineup this season and are 7-1 overall together. The duo has a ranked win over then-No. 15 Guillermina Grant and Mair Nirundorn of Georgia.

Scouting the Demon Deacons

  • Wake Forest is 3-3 this season with their three losses coming to then-No. 18 Tennessee, then-No. 20 San Diego, and FIU. The team has wins over Bellarmine, Old Dominion, and George Mason.
  • The matchup versus South Carolina will be the Demon Deacons first home match of the season. They are 2-2 when playing on the road and 1-1 at neutral sites.
  • Casie Wooten is the lone Wake Forest player in the ITA Singles rankings, coming in at No. 35. Wooten is 8-5 overall this season and 1-2 from the top of the dual lineup.
  • In doubles, Brooke Killingsworth and Marcella Cruz have handled duties at the top of the lineup where they are 3-1. The duo is 9-8 overall together.

Series History

  • South Carolina leads the all-time series against Wake Forest 14-10 and has won five of the last six meetings.
  • The two teams first faces in 1978 with South Carolina winning 5-4. The Gamecocks won the first six matches of the series.
  • Wake Forest and South Carolina are tied for longest win streak of the series with South Carolina tallying six wins from 1978-1991 and the Demon Deacons going on a six-match win streak of the own from 1992-1998.
  • Under head coach Kevin Epley, South Carolina is 3-1 against Wake Forest.
  • The two teams have split the most recent results with Wake Forest winning 4-3 in Winston-Salem in 2022 and South Carolina winning 4-3 in Columbia in 2023.
  • South Carolina’s last win at Wake Forest was in 2015.

For all the latest South Carolina women’s tennis information, continue to follow GamecocksOnline.com or the team on social media (@GamecockWTennis).

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