If the ASU women's tennis team was out for revenge, it certainly got what it was looking for Thursday.
The No. 27 Sun Devils cruised through their first home match of the spring season, defeating No. 43 Princeton 6-1 at the Whiteman Tennis Center to improve to 1-1 on the season in team play.
The Tigers had eliminated ASU from the NCAA Team Championships two of the last three seasons.
"I don't know if there was any sort of revenge factor," said head coach Sheila McInerney. " I do think our kids had a lot of respect for them and were very motivated to play well."
The Sun Devils played well right from the start. Senior Desirae Krawczyk and junior Gussie O'Sullivan swept their match in doubles while junior Kassidy Jump and freshman Sammi Hampton also picked up a win to give ASU the first point of the day.
In singles, Krawczyk took down Princeton's top player Amanda Muliawan (6-0, 6-2) to earn her second consecutive win since falling to Northwestern sophomore Maddie Lipp.
"I don't expect to win every match, but that was kind of a wake up call for me personally," said Krawczyk of her match with Lipp. "I just need to go match-by-match and not worry about the rest of the season. It was a good win today."
It wasn't just Krawczyk who contributed to the victory. Hampton continued her strong performance with a win over Princeton's junior Sivan Krems (6-3, 6-2). It was Hampton's third consecutive win in singles since replacing the injured Stephanie Vlad in the top six.
Junior Alexandra Osborne suffered the Sun Devils' only loss of the afternoon to Tigers' junior Alanna Wolff. However, Jump would pick up the slack with a win against Katrine Steffensen, taking each set 6-3 to seal the deal for ASU.
The team gets right back to work Friday with another home match against University of Texas-El Paso at 1:30 p.m. UTEP was swept by No. 65 University of Arizona Thursday and fell to 3-2 overall on the season.
"I don't know much about them (UTEP), we'll do some scouting tonight and get some notes on them," said McInerney. "For us it's just a matter of getting some momentum. We should be getting better every match, and hopefully we play even better tomorrow than we did today."
Related Links:
ASU tennis kicks off its home schedule against No. 43 Princeton
ASU tennis sweeps No. 32 Notre Dame, loses to Northwestern
Reach the reporter at mfaye@asu.edu or follow @mattGfaye on Twitter.
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