With the dual match score knotted at three all and just one match in progress, Georgia women’s tennis player Yvette Hyndman faced the biggest pressure moment of the young season.

Tied at 5-all in the third set against Baylor’s No. 54-ranked Csilla Borsanyi , a nervous tension settled through the home crowd at the Hopkins Indoor Center.

Eventually the No. 41 ranked junior from Bradenton, Fla. would answer the challenge, however. Battling through a calf cramp for almost the entire match, Hyndman held serve and then broke Borsanyi to take the match 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to give the No. 2-ranked Georgia women (9-1) a hard fought 4-3 victory over Baylor (4-3) Saturday. The win avenges a 4-3 loss the Bulldogs suffered at the hands of the Bears a year ago in Waco, Tex.

“It was real exciting. I’ve never been in this type of situation where I’m the last one on the court, and it comes down to me. I’ve clinched a match before, but it’s never been like that for me,” Hyndman said after the thrilling victory.

“I was a little nervous, but just really excited. The last game, I just really tried to step it up and go for it, hoping that I’ll make it and I did.”

Not only did Hyndman have to deal with the nagging calf cramp in the third set, but she also fell down 4-3 after she failed to hold her serve. Facing what looked to be an insurmountable deficit while receiving treatment on her lower leg during the change-over , Hyndman broke back to even the decisive third set at 4-all, a juncture she called the “turning point” of the match.

“I’m excited that [Yvette] was able to find a way and get through it,” Georgia head coach Jeff Wallace said. “There were two courts that [Baylor] just absolutely played great tennis on, and Yvette’s was one of them.”

The finish to the doubles point was just as thrilling as the conclusion of the dual match. After the top doubles team of Hyndman and Chelsey Gullickson had lost four out their last five, Wallace made the adjustment of moving freshman phenom Nadja Gilchrist to the 1-doubles position alongside classmate, Gullickson. In their first match together, the duo scored a huge upset victory over Baylor’s No. 7-ranked team of Borsanyi and Lenka Broosova.

Then, Georgia’s new No. 3 team of Monika Dancevic and Cameron Ellis clinched the doubles point with a 9-8(1) victory even though the Baylor team of Nina Sercerbegovic and Kasia Siwosz held a 7-5 lead in the match. Dancevic and Ellis proved too strong late in the match as they saved two match point opportunities to earn the coveted doubles point.

“We just decided that we were going to try something different,” Wallace said in regards to the changes. “Against the top 15 teams in the country, we’re now 3-3 in doubles. We were 2-3 going into this. I just felt like maybe we should just maybe see if we can make the team a little bit better and try something different.”

“That’s the time of the year that we’re in. So, we were able to get the doubles point today. Was it because of all the switches? No. I think it was more because of the players coming out and playing good hard tennis.”

The No. 9-ranked Gullickson gave Georgia a 2-0 lead after she beat her 15th ranked opponent of the season, No. 26-ranked Taylor Ormond, 7-5, 6-1.

Things looked gloomy for the Bulldogs at this point, as Hyndman, Gilchrist, and Dancevic each dropped their first set. Gilchrist and Dancevic were both lost to give Baylor a glimmer of hope with the overall match score at 2-apiece.

But, No. 91 Naoko Ueshima continued her impressive play for Georgia with a dominating performance over Karolina Filipiak 6-3, 6-2. Baylor would later tie the score at 3-all before Hyndman clinched the match as Cameron Ellis snapped a 12-match win streak in her straight-set loss to Baylor’s Sercerbegovic.

“We get a victory and it’s a hard fought victory,” Wallace said. “I told my team going into this that this is like a quarterfinal match in the NCAA Tournament and we got to find ways to get through that and we did today, so I’m very pleased with that.”