GRAMBLING STATE box score | SOUTHERN box score

BATON ROUGE, La. – The Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers tennis team opened play at the first Southwestern Athletic Conference roundup of 2016, splitting their Friday matches.
 
The Lady Panthers faced the SWAC's two Louisiana programs, falling 7-0 to host Southern and defeating Grambling State 6-1.
 
In the win over Grambling State, the Lady Tigers won the top two doubles flights for their lone point, but the Lady Panthers won every single match to claim the victory.
 
PVAMU's Neharika Rama, a freshman from Hyderabad, India, had a relatively easy time claiming victory in singles flight one, defeating GSU's Phonephathep Philavvong of Laos 6-4, 6-3. Rama was the only Panther to not need a tiebreaker of any sort.
 
In flight five, PVAMU's Timara Maxwell defeated Zimbabwean Tanyaradzwa Magunje in two sets, 7-6 and 6-2. Maxwell prevailed 2-0 in a tiebreaker game in the opening set.
 
The Lady Panthers claimed match victory with wins in flights three and four. Stacy Lackey (flight three) and Shaddae Findley (flight four) both won three-set matches by identical scores of 6-1, 4-6, and 6-2. Lackey defeated Tafadzwa Chiridza and Findley defeated Joy Jones.
 
With the match in hand, Sydney Thomas' (pictured) flight two match went to a single-set tiebreaker. Thomas fell behind in the match when Keren Muswere won the opening set 6-1, but recovered with a 6-3 and 10-4 wins.
 
Tatiana Ruhl's flight six match was won by forfeit, as Grambling State only fielded five players.
 
Against Southern, Maxwell and Trinity Randolph won their flight two doubles match over Laura Syori and Nicki Neal by a 6-3 score, but the Jaguars were victorious in every other match. Lackey's flight three singles match to Amanda Materre went three sets, with Lackey opening with a 7-6 win before falling 6-4 and 10-5.
 
The Lady Panthers and men's Panther teams return to action Saturday morning.