By Long Beach State women’s tennis went 1-1 over the weekend, defeating Weber State 6-1 and losing 3-4 in a tough outing against Cal State Fullerton. The two-game sample displays the team’s consistency struggles this season.
When Long Beach faced Weber State, it took an approach that lends itself to success, making decisions safely by the baseline. The greatest example of which was junior Natalia Munoz, who had two spotless 6-0 sets in her singles match.
“I have a couple of wins under my belt and it does help my confidence … going on the court knowing that if you do the right thing it will most likely go your way,” Munoz said.
Leaving her opponent distressed throughout the game and not giving them room to breath is what made the singles performance so ideal for a 49ers team that continually seeks to capture that level of intensity. Munoz has reached that mark many times over the past 10 games, having an 8-2 record in both singles and doubles this season.
The rest of the team had similar results, demolishing in doubles and eventually going five-of-six in their singles matches.
“We talked about, especially on a windy day, playing high percentage tennis,” said coach Jenny Hilt-Costello. “I thought we did that very well.”
Long Beach won all double matches against CSUF (6-2), but lost the singles battle. Singles matches produced four competitive matchups that had only two 49ers come out on top.
The two who lost their competitive matches, Munoz and sophomore Sadaf Sadeghvaziri, were a couple moves away from a different outcome, something the players can tip their hat to.
Freshmen Wiktoria Rutkowska and Emma Bardet did not have the same takeaways, with both of them struggling in familiar fashions and not having the consistency to pull away with wins in any of their singles sets.
Returning home, Long Beach has a 2 p.m Wednesday matchup against Youngstown State.
