Senior Desirae Krawczyk has carried the ASU women's tennis team for much of the young spring season.
Her teammates returned the favor Friday.
The 27th-ranked Sun Devils picked up their second home win in as many days, taking down unranked UTEP 6-1 at the Whiteman Tennis Center to improve to 2-1 on the season. ASU defeated No. 43 Princeton by the same score Thursday.
"I thought UTEP really competed hard, we expected a tough match again today," said head coach Sheila McInerney. "It was another good win against a scrappy team."
Krawczyk suffered the lone loss on the day for ASU in a tough match with UTEP sophomore Vivienne Kulicke that went to a 10-point tiebreaker. If after two sets a match is tied at one apiece, a first-to-ten tiebreaker is held to decide the winner in place of a third set.
"It was a tough match, (Kulicke) played well," said Krawczyk. "Anything can happen once to get to the tiebreaker. Personally, I'd prefer a third set there but those are the rules."
Rules are rules, but it was a moot point by then. The team competition was over long before Krawczyk finished her match with Kulicke to end the day as the Sun Devils took the first five singles matches.
Senior Ebony Panoho never trailed in a (6-2, 6-0) win over UTEP's Lois Wagenvoort, while juniors Gussie O'Sullivan and Alexandra Osborne each added wins for the Sun Devils. Freshman Sammi Hampton also led wire-to-wire in her match against Daphne Visscher. It was Hampton's fourth straight victory since replacing injured senior Stephanie Vlad in the Sun Devils' top six.
"In the individual tournaments I was having trouble feeling like I belonged, said Hampton. "The wins have really helped me feel like I can contribute and help the team out."
ASU started the day by earning the doubles point yet again as Krawczyk and O'Sullivan took care of business in the third pairing. Then, Panoho and Osborne sealed the point with an emotional 6-4 victory over the Miner's top duo of Kulicke and junior Duda Santos. The Sun Devils have made a habit of starting matches off right, earning the doubles point in each of their last three team competitions.
"No question we pride ourselves on our doubles, said McInerney. "Today, I think we were a little lucky to get the point quite honestly, but in the end we took care of it which was nice. When it comes at the beginning it just seems a little bit more important."
ASU now gets the week off before hosting the University of San Diego February 13th at the Whiteman Tennis Center.
Reach the reporter at mfaye@asu.edu or follow @mattGfaye on Twitter.
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