Freshman Conley Raidt added another game clincher to her young resume with Tennessee, giving the Lady Vols their final push to defeat Pepperdine, 4-3, Saturday afternoon.
Friday saw the No. 13 Lady Vols (5-1) drop their first official match of the 2025 season at the hands of No. 5 Virginia by a final score of 4-2. The team dropped the doubles point and could not rebound despite two singles wins.
Despite the rough loss, the team made a quick 24-hour turnaround against another quality team in No. 15 Pepperdine (1-5).
The loss on Friday also brought an end to the doubles point streak, but the Lady Vols salvaged it with another doubles win over Pepperdine, all while needing just two courts to complete the frame.
Leyla Britez Risso and Catherine Aulia, who have been paired together all season, grabbed a 6-2 victory at Court 2 over Pepperdine’s Taylor Goetz and Duru Soke.
No. 54 ranked doubles pairing of Vanessa Suarez and Maeve Thornton tallied the doubles point clincher scored 6-4 over Pepperdine’s Anastasiia Grechkina and Alexia Harmon, giving the Lady Vols a point advantage.
Freshly bumped up three spots to No. 7 in the nation in singles play, senior Elza Tomase made quick work of No. 16 Savannah Broadus. Tomase needed just two sets, winning both, 6-0 and 6-1.
Despite the momentum from Tomase’s big win at Court 1 that pushed the Lady Vol lead to two, Pepperdine returned the favor at Court 3.
Lady Vol Thornton dropped her match in a quick two-set match, scoring 6-2 in both sets. Her opponent, No. 80 Vivian Yang, put Pepperdine back in the game after dropping the first two points of the game.
Trailing by one, No. 104 Britez Risso added to her impressive start to the 2025 season, this time with a two-set victory at Court 4. Britez Risso now sees her singles spring record move to 6-0 on the season with the win over Liam Oved.
Pepperdine’s Grechkina defeated Aulia in a back-and-forth match on Court 2 that would ultimately go the distance at three sets — 2-6, 7-5 and 4-6.
The Pepperdine Court 2 win cut the lead down to just one for the Lady Vols with only the back two courts standing.
Alexia Harmon defeated No. 77 Vanesa Suarez at Court 5 in three sets (4-6, 6-2, 4-6) putting Pepperdine in a prime position to come back and steal the win from the Lady Vols who had led the game up until this point.
For the second time in three games, Raidt clinched at Court 6 (4-6, 7-6, 6-3) against No. 108 Soke. It was an extremely gritty win for the freshman who has been put to the test early this season and has not failed.
The Lady Vols will play the winner of Stanford and Northwestern on Sunday, which will be decided later in the day.
