The No. 45 Missouri women’s tennis team suffered a heartbreaking 4-3 loss in its final home match of the season Sunday to Kansas State at Green Tennis Center.

At No. 1 singles, Missouri (10-9, 2-5 Big 12 Conference) senior Nina Pantic dropped a close match against Petra Niedermayerova (6-4 and 7-5).

Missouri sophomore Rachel Stuhlmann retired in the middle of the first set at No. 2 singles, giving Kansas State’s Karla Bonacic the 1-0 victory. It was clear Stuhlmann was hurt on the first point, yet she wanted to continue. She even resorted to serving underhanded, until coach Sasha Schmid forced her to retire.

While Schmid said losing Stuhlmann undoubtedly hurt the team, she said her injury was not an excuse for the team’s loss.

“We had some difficulty with Rachel which was tough, but I can’t blame (the loss) on that,” she said. “I think we had plenty of chances, but K-State simply played better than us at the important moments.”

At No. 3, Missouri junior Maria Christensen notched a Tiger victory when she topped Ana Gomez Aleman (6-4 and 6-1).

Kansas State gained a point at No. 4, as Carli Wischhoff defeated Missouri senior Jamie Mera in a tough match (6-4 and 6-4).

At No. 5 singles, Missouri freshman Alex Clark rebounded from a tough loss Friday and handled Amina St. Hill (6-2 and 6-3).

Missouri suffered another loss at No. 6, as Carmen Borau Ramos won a hard-fought battle against Missouri junior Annemijn Koenen.

Koenen was at one point leading 5-3 in the second set before Ramos staged a comeback to complete the victory.

Though the Tigers lost the overall match, they did earn the doubles point by winning two of three matches.

At No. 1 doubles, the Missouri senior pairing of Pantic and Mera easily prevailed over Niedermayerova and Bonacic, 8-3.

Mera was very pleased with the duo’s performance.

“Doubles was great,” she said. “It was probably the best we’ve played all season. We played tough and won the key points when we had to.”

Missouri juniors Christensen and Koenen won a back-and-forth match against Ramos and Petra Chuda at No. 2 (9-8 and 7-2).

The Tigers suffered their only doubles loss at No. 3, as Clark and freshman Ashleigh Chiaf were defeated 8-5 by Kansas State’s Trousilova and Wischhoff.

“We have to execute at the end of games,” Pantic said. “We just have to close out better.”

The Tigers will hope to do exactly that when they face Texas Tech on April 20 in Lubbock, Texas.