MOBILE, Ala.- It was a tough day for the No. 22 ranked West Florida women's tennis team as the Argos fell short to South Alabama 6-1 in their first match of the season at the Bruce David Lubel Memorial Tennis Courts.

The Jaguars claimed the lone doubles point, but not without a fight from West Florida. Mayumi Saguchi and Jenna Svatos fought from the No. 1 position; their efforts came up short, falling 6-3. Freshmen No. 2 pair Aline Midori Da Silva and Meghan Kumria dropped their match 6-2 to USA's Elysia Pool and Nikola Novotna. The Argos just could not come up with a point from the No. 3 position as Raissa Wagner and Guadalupe Martinez fell 6-3.

West Florida looked to make a comeback in the singles competition with newcomer Martinez winning her match in a tiebreaker from the No. 3 position 3-6, 7-6, 10-8 in the top of the lineup. Saguchi came up short in her match from the No. 1 position 6-0, 6-0 to the Jaguar's Novotna. Midori Da Silva dropped her match from the No. 3 position 6-1, 6-0.

From the bottom half of the lineup, Kumria battled from the No. 6 position, but ended up falling 6-1, 6-1. Svatos dropped her first set 6-1 and started to make a comeback. After her efforts, she fell 6-3 from the No. 5 position. Carlota Verdu rounded out the bottom half of the lineup from the No. 4 position, she could not come up with the point as her opponent Tereza Dejnozkova won 6-3, 6-4.

South Alabama remains undefeated with a 4-0 start to the 2023 spring season.

"This was a great match for us to start off the season," said head coach Derrick Racine. "South Alabama has a very good program and good players from top to bottom. Our girls played very tough today and had some very good matches. It's always good to play a high-quality team to start out the season to get us ready for conference play. We jump right in the GSC conference play our first weekend of the season, so we needed this to be ready."

Up Next: The Argonauts will travel to Rome, Ga. to start Gulf South Conference competition against Shorter on Feb. 17.

How to Follow the Argos: For complete information on UWF Women's Tennis, follow the team on Twitter and Instagram at @TennisUWF on Twitter and @uwfwomenstennis on Instagram.