Fleur Sprengers and Kateryna Kalistratova each earned singles victories as the New Orleans Privateers women’s tennis team was defeated by the McNeese Cowgirls, 5-2, on Monday morning at the Privateer Tennis Center.
The match highlighted strong individual performances from Sprengers and Kalistratova despite the overall team loss. Their efforts were not enough to overcome McNeese, who clinched the win after securing the doubles point and sweeping flights three through six in singles.
Sprengers claimed a straight-set victory over Salome Fluri, breaking Fluri’s serve late in the first set to win it 6-4 before taking a commanding lead in the second. Although Fluri narrowed the gap to 4-3, Sprengers responded with another break of serve and held her own serve to close out the match. This marked only Fluri’s fifth career loss while improving Sprengers’ season record to 13-1.
Kalistratova came back from losing her first set against Alexa Martinez by winning the second set 6-4. In a decisive third-set tiebreaker, she took six of the last nine points for a 10-6 win. With this result, Kalistratova moved her season record to 11-2 and reached her 31st career singles victory.
In doubles play, McNeese secured an early advantage when their flight two pair recovered from a service break down. Fluri and Erica Hagi won six of their last seven games for a 6-3 victory that delivered McNeese its first point of the day. The Privateers’ duo of Sprengers and Danique Vermue took flight one with a quick start but Ana Hollweg and Naomi Hagi claimed flight three for McNeese.
The Privateers will next travel to Southern Miss for an away match scheduled on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
