KU tennis falls to defending national champion in Sweet 16
The Kansas tennis team, in the end, came up one match short in its quest to advance to next week’s Elite Eight in Orlando, Florida.
KU, the No. 14 national seed, fell to third-ranked Stanford 4-3 in the NCAA Tournament Super Regionals on Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, California.
The Jayhawks finished their team season with a 21-5 record.
Stanford, the defending national champion, needed to play all six singles matches to defeat KU. After the Jayhawks won the doubles point, Maria Toran Ribes (No. 6) and Anastasia Rychagova (No. 1) took singles victories to tie the score at 3-3.
That left it up to No. 5 singles, where Stanford’s Janice Shin completed a rally against KU’s Nina Khmelnitckaia for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 match-clinching win.
KU, which won the Big 12 championship last month, advanced to the Sweet 16 this season for the first time since 1998.
The NCAA team championships begin May 16 in Orlando, with the individual championships starting on May 20.
This story was originally published May 10, 2019 at 8:31 PM with the headline "KU tennis falls to defending national champion in Sweet 16."
