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April 4, 2003

PULLMAN, Wash. -- The Washington State tennis team lost its first match in Pullman as the No. 45 Arizona Wildcats beat the Cougars 5-2, Friday at the Stadium Way Tennis Center.

The No. 42 Cougars (7-9, 0-4 Pacific-10) narrowly lost the doubles point to the Wildcats (6-8, 1-7 Pac-10). At No. 1 doubles, Cougars Chris Martinez and Lorena Arias beat Arizona's Maja Mlakar and Emilie Scribot, 8-3. Cougar sophomores Nora Gaal and Zsofia Fodor lost at No. 3 singles, 8-2. With all the attention on court No. 2, Arizona's Kristy Randono and Debbie Larocque edged WSU's Orsolya Sallai and Annabel Stefanchuk, 9-8 (8-6). In the No. 2 doubles tie-breaker, UA jumped out to a 4-1 lead, but WSU rallied to make it 4-4 with Sallai serving. With Arizona up 7-6, Sallai double faulted and the Wildcats won the tie breaker 8-6 to earn the all-important doubles point.

"In doubles, we were doing what we should be doing, but we need to finish off the matches," said WSU Tennis Coach Cari Groce. "You can't double fault on match point. We needed to take that doubles point."

Sophomore lefty Zsofi Fodor and freshman Annabel Stefanchuk were the lone winners for the Cougars in singles action. Fodor beat Randono 6-4, 6-4 at No. 6 singles, while Stefanchuk beat Perry 1-6, 7-6, 7-6 at No. 5 singles.

It was the Cougars first match of the season in Pullman.

"It's a huge advantage to play in Pullman," Groce said. "We love to play outside here.. These are our home courts and we had good fan support today. It was great."

The Cougars host No. 12 Arizona State Saturday (April 5) at noon. WSU also hosts No. 7 UCLA (Friday April 11 at noon) and No. 1 USC (Saturday April 12 at noon) next weekend. The matches will probably be played at the Stadium Way Tennis Center, but poor weather could force the matches indoors to Lewiston, Idaho.

SINGLES
1. No. 20 Emilie Scribot (Ariz) def. No. 107 Orsolya Sallai (WSU), 6-4, 6-1
2. No. 95 Maja Mlakar (Ariz) def. No. 95 Lorena Arias (WSU), 6-0, 6-2
3. No. 54 Dianne Hollands (Ariz) def. Chris Martinez (WSU), 6-2, 6-3
4. Debbie Larocque (Ariz) def. Nora Gaal (WSU), 6-4, 6-0
5. Annabel Stefanchuk (WSU) def. Kelly Perry (Ariz), 1-6, 7-6, 7-6
6. Zsofi Fodor (WSU) def. Kristy Randono (Ariz), 6-4, 6-4
DOUBLES
1. Arias/Martinez (WSU) def. Scribot/Mlakar (Ariz), 8-3
2. Larocque/Randono (Ariz) def. Roganovic/Sallai (WSU), 9-8 (8-6)
3. Mlakar/Hollands (Ariz) def.  Fodor/Gaal (WSU), 8-6

-GO COUGS-