The Big 12 season opener got off to a fast start for the ISU women’s tennis team on Saturday, but No. 9 Baylor slowly drained the air out of the building.

The Cyclones took the doubles point when Danielle Uscinski and Chrissy Derouin won their match by a score of 8-3 and Beth Chermel and Kara Hickey won their match 8-5. This countered the match dropped by Jill Palen and Eve Soriano, 8-2.

Baylor bounced back, however, winning every singles match to come out on top, 6-1.

“It’s good to play the top team first,” Uscinski said.

“See where you’re at, where you need to go.”

Uscinski and Derouin looked sharp early, racing to a 7-0 start in the match and ultimately coming out on top.

Chermel and Hickey had to work a little harder for their match, alternating points with Baylor until Chermel established her serve after the score was 5-5 and served two aces on the clinching point.

Once doubles matches were over, however, the frustration began to mount and unforced errors plagued the Cyclones.

It was evident that the singles matches would not be as easy when Baylor’s top player took no longer than 35 minutes to defeat Palen.

Nationally-ranked Zuzana Zemenova had a shoulder injury and was allowed to serve underhand, which was new to Palen.

“The underhand serve threw me off a little,” Palen said.

“But she was so good, very consistent.”

Zuzana still blasted her forehands past Palen, and quickly overpowered her 6-1, 6-0.

Uscinski pushed her match to three sets, taking the first set 7-5 against Klara Zrustova. But then the tables turned to favor Zrustova, who took the last two sets by the score of 6-1.

“I’m normally used to grinding it out from the baseline,” Uscinski said.

“She made me come up to the net and I’m not used to that.”

Adding to the frustration was when Uscinski would hit a great baseline shot, Zrustova would lob the return in the air and Uscinski would hit the next shot into the net. It was not hard to see that Uscinski became increasingly upset every time she netted a shot.

“I don’t hide my frustration very well,” Uscinski said.

The Cyclones kept the matches close, but were unable to put away the Bears.

Charlotte Ljungkrantz lost 6-4, 6-4 and Chrissy Derouin lost 6-4, 6-0.

Hickey lost her tiebreaker in the first set 7-3 and hung around in the second set before Daniela Covello pulled away for a 6-3 victory.

Chermel fought just as hard in her match, but her serve flashed inconsistently throughout the match and fell 6-4, 6-3 in straight sets.

“Last year we had nine singles games against them and today we had thirty-eight,” said ISU coach Michele Conlon.

“That’s a good sign, and yet I’m not comfortable because no one played their best today.”

The Cyclones now prepare for their road match against No. 34 Wisconsin Feb. 10.