SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – UT Tyler tennis will head back to Tyler with a split after Friday's Lone Star Conference action against St. Mary's.
 
On the women's side of the competition, the Rattlers came in ranked #37 in the latest ITA Rankings.
 
The match began in doubles, where the Rattlers put together a strong showing, taking all three matches by a score of 6-4 to sweep doubles and take a 1-0 lead heading into singles.
 
They kept their momentum going in singles, taking two straight sets wins in match #4 and match #2 to put themselves into match point. Match point came into the hands of match #6, where Luisa Moraes battled tough. Ultimately however, the Rattlers would take a 6-3, 6-2 win, giving them the four points they needed to win the match.
 
The Rattlers would tack on one more win in the #1 line, but the Patriots found some late momentum as both Kanika Sivaraman and Elisa Buhagiar took wins.
 
Sivaraman completed a straight sets win that featured a huge second set showing in scores of 7-5, 6-0.
 
Buhagiar put together a 6-3 win in set one, and then battled through a dramatic set two to take a 7-6 (7-3) win to make the final score 5-2.
 
Over on the men's side of the match, the Rattlers again looked strong in doubles as they swept the #20 ranked Patriots in all three matches to take a 1-0 lead into singles.
 
However, in singles, the Patriots battled right back, led by the efforts in the #6 and #5 lines. Yudai Watanabe finished first in line #6, going on a tear while winning 6-2, 6-1 in dominant fashion. Jordi Garcia Portell followed with his own 6-4, 6-3 straight sets win to put the Patriots ahead 2-0.
 
The next match to go final was the #2 line, where Egor Shestakov took his own 6-3, 6-1 victory to put the Patriots onto match point.
 
However, the Rattlers weren't done fighting, as they took dramatic three set wins in both the #3 and #4 lines over Daniil Felker and Carel Wessel as they evened up the match heading into the final match of the day.
That final match was in the #1 slot, as Joaquin Bianchi took on Alvaro Soler. Soler took a 6-4 first set, but Bianchi battled back with a 6-4 effort of his own to even the match. That brought it all down to the third set, where Bianchi took a dramatic 7-5 win to complete the win for UT Tyler.
 
The Patriots now move to 2-1 in LSC play on the year, and will now have the rest of the weekend off. They will next host Cameron on April 5^th and UAFS on April 6^th.