Syracuse tennis ended their 4-game losing streak as they took a close 4-3 win against the visiting Louisville Cardinals. Syracuse goes to 8-8 on the season and pick up their 2nd win of the year in ACC play after going 1-5 against ACC opponents in the month of March. The match proved to be a tense bought as the outcome came down to the final match of the day for Syracuse to take the win.
The Orange were fighting from behind to start off as number one singles player for Syracuse, Viktoriya Kanapatskaya was unavailable for the match. However, Syracuse was able to take the doubles point even with only being able to play in 2 of the 3 doubles matches. The duo of Shiori Ito and Sofya Treshcheva and the pairing of Miyuka Kimoto and Polina Kozyreva were able to both take their doubles matches with ease.
Louisville tied up the match quickly as Syracuse forfeited one of the matches due to Kanapatskaya’s absence, making the match 1-1 at the beginning of the singles bouts. Syracuse’s injury woes continued as Treshcheva forfeited her match in the first set after experiencing injury issues that have plagued the second half of the season for her.
“We gotta be ready and block everything and block what the score is,“ Coach Younes Limam said on how Syracuse was able to come back after losing two of the singles matches due to injury. Coach Limam did not comment on the reason for Kanapatskaya’s absence from the match.
The singles matches proved to be much more difficult for the Orange. Shiori Ito was able to take her match in dominant fashion against Louisville’s Sasha Gorchanyuk in straight sets.
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Without Kanapatskaya, Kozyreva slid into the #1 singles position to take on Louisville’s Andrea Di Palma. Kozyreva went down early, losing the first set and being down 5 – 2 in the second set. She attempted a comeback in the set, winning 3 games in a row to tie the set at 5 but Di Palma was able to stave off the comeback to take the match in straight sets.
Following Kozyreva’s match, Ines Fonte came back from one set down to bring the match back to a tie at 3 – 3.
The entire day came down to a long battle between Kimoto and Louisville’s Rhea Verma. You could cut the tension with a knife between the two teams. Verma took the second set after she started getting more aggressive, forcing Kimoto to change up her style. In the 3rd set, Kimoto played much more defensively, forcing long rallies which often ended in a miss for her opponent.
“Our plan was to take that 20 seconds between each point and we tried to maximize especially when things weren’t going our way,” Coach Limam said on Kimoto’s strategy after she dropped the first set.
After a long and hard-fought match for both sides, Kimoto was finally able to grab the win for the Orange. “We showed a lot of grit, a lot of focus, a lot of passion and it’s great to come out on top today,” Coach Limam said on the win.
Syracuse continues their weekend of play as they host Notre Dame on Sunday at 11 a.m. at Drumlins Tennis Club in Syracuse. They will then have their last home match of the season when they play host to Boston College the following weekend on April 10.