DALLAS — The North Texas tennis team lost 6-1 Saturday afternoon to defending American Athletic Conference champion Tulsa Hurricanes at the SMU Indoor Tennis Complex.

The Mean Green (9-8) battled closely with Tulsa (12-8) in doubles. Two of the three double matches went to a tiebreak and Haruka Sasaki and Alexandra Heczey came from behind to just narrowly lose their match. UNT's Maria Kononova and Tamuna Kuutbidze took the No. 15 nationally ranked doubled team to a tiebreak at the top of the doubles lineup but lost 7-4 in the tiebreak. The loss is Kononova and Kutubidze — the No. 44 nationally ranked doubled team — first loss of the year.

UNT entered Saturday's match in a tough position. The Mean Green were without junior Ivana Babic due to a minor injury and then lost Kononova early in her singles match as she was forced to retire in the second set. Kononova's retirement put UNT in a hole as they trailed 2-0 early into singles.

Tulsa pounced and won at No. 6 and No. 3 in straight sets to clinch the win. 

The two teams chose to play out the match and senior Minying Liang and sophomore Nidhi Surapaneni fought back in their singles matches. After losing the first set, Surapaneni cruised to a 6-0 second-set win and went back-and-forth with her opponent in a first to 10-point third-set but fell and struggled to get back and loss 10-5 in the third set. 

Liang, similar to Surapaneni, lost her first set but had a furious 6-2 win in the second-set to send it to a tightly contested third-set where she stay composed to work through the ups and downs of the set to a 13-11 third-set win and the Mean Green's lone victory on Saturday.

North Texas returns Sunday at noon as they host UTSA.

SINGLES
1. #98 Martina Okalova (TUL) def. #79 Tamuna Kutubidze (UNT) 6-3, 6-2
2. Martha Matoula (TUL) def. Maria Kononova (UNT) 6-2, 3-0, retired
3. Vera Ploner (TUL) def. Alexandra Heczey (UNT) 6-3, 6-2
4. Minying Liang (UNT) def. Megan Hopton (TUL) 3-6, 6-2, 13-11
5. Shura Poppe (TUL) def. Nidhi Surapaneni (UNT) 6-4, 0-6, 10-5
6. Marina Davtyan (TUL) def. Haruka Sasaki (UNT) 6-1, 6-0

DOUBLES
1. #15 Martina Okalova/Vera Ploner (TUL) def. #44 Tamuna Kutubidze/Maria Kononova (UNT) 7-6 (7-4)
2. Shura Poppe/Martha Matoula (TUL) def. Nidhi Surapaneni/Minying Liang (UNT) 6-2
3. Megan Hopton/Marina Davtyan (TUL) def. Alexandra Heczey/Haruka Sasaki (UNT) 7-6 (8-6)