BOX SCORE
MEMPHIS — The North Texas tennis team won its second straight road match on Saturday with a narrow 4-3 victory at Memphis.

In what was the Mean Green's (11-9) final road match of the regular season, it was senior captain Maria Kononova who came through to give her team their 11th regular season win, which is the most they've had since 2013 when they won 15 regular season matches. 

With the match tied 3-3, Kononova, who had to grind out a come from behind first-set tiebreaker win, had to pull out another tiebreaker in the second-set to clinch the win for the Mean Green.

Kononova won 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2).

The win is Kononova's third in a row but her 13th win in her last 14 matches. 

"It was a tough match and I found myself down 2-5 in the first set and I looked around and saw that everyone was playing close matches," Kononova said. "So I was focusing on getting back as close as I can and I eventually climbed back. It was the same situation in the second set. I just had to work for each point. I made some great shots which helped me to increase my confidence.

"Also the rest of my team was fighting back and I wasn't sure if it would come down to my match. I'm just happy I could do that in two sets and get the final point for us," she added.

The win was Kononova's 81st singles win all-time. She broke the school record in the fall when she won her 66th.

As they've done all year and been so good at this season, North Texas jumped out to a 1-0 lead with a doubles point victory. The Mean Green got their wins at the No. 2 and then No. 1 spot in the lineup. 

Kononova and her doubles partner Tamuna Kutubidze, the team's No. 1 doubles team and most successful doubles team in program history, improved to 11-1 on the year with their win, which clinched the doubles point. 

Kononova and Kutubidze are now 67-23 all-time. 

With the early lead, UNT quickly saw it's lead increase to 3-0 as Alexandra Heczey and Minying Liang picked up straight set wins at No. 4 and No. 3 in the lineup. However their big lead quickly was gone as the Tigers (11-9) won three straight singles matches and put all the attention on court one where Kononova was battling it out.

The one-point decision was the Mean Green's fifth one-point decision this season.

They have now beaten Memphis three times in the last four years.

UNT hosts its final regular season match of 2019 on Wednesday versus SMU with a scheduled start time of 3 p.m. It will be the final home match for seniors Kononova, Kutubidze and Liang. North Texas travels to Houston for the 2019 Conference USA Tennis Championship on April 18 at Rice. 

SINGLES
1. Maria Kononova (UNT) def. Alisha Reayer (MEM) 7-6, 7-6
2. Laura Bente (MEM) def. Tamuna Kutubidze (UNT) 7-6, 5-7, 6-0
3. Minying Liang (UNT) def. Hannah Davies (MEM) 6-3, 6-1
4. Alexandra Heczey (UNT) def. Aleks Topalovic (MEM) 6-3, 6-1
5. Katherine Cao (MEM) def. Nidhi Surapaneni (UNT) 6-4, 6-1
6. Lina Hohnhold (MEM) def. Ivana Babic (UNT) 6-2, 7-6

DOUBLES
1. Tamuna Kutubidze/Maria Kononova (UNT) def. Alisha Reayer/Laura Bente (MEM) 6-3
2. Ivana Babic/Alexandra Heczey (UNT) def. Josephine Cao/Claire Sullivan (MEM) 6-3
3. Katherine Cao/Hannah Davies (MEM) def. Minying Liang/Nidhi Surapaneni (UNT) 4-3