Three years ago, Syracuse’s four current seniors — Gabriela Knutson, Masha Tritou, Libi Mesh and Dina Hegab — traveled to Gainesville, Florida and played in the program’s first NCAA tournament match. Knutson, Mesh and Hegab all won their singles matches as SU overcame a lost doubles point to defeat Georgia State 4-3.

This year, they’ll have the opportunity for one more tournament trip, now their third in four years. In Monday night’s NCAA tournament selection show, No. 31 Syracuse (13-12, 5-9 Atlantic Coast) earned a spot in Stanford’s region and plays No. 40 Wisconsin (18-5, 9-2 Big 10) in a first-round matchup on Saturday at noon.

Syracuse started off its 2019 campaign with four straight wins, including two in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend against then-No. 9 Michigan and Purdue to clinch the Orange’s first berth in the National Indoor Team Championship in team history. That next week, SU rose to No. 10, its highest ranking ever.

But then the inconsistency that plagued the Orange the rest of its season kicked in. SU lost the next four matches, before rebounding to take the following four.

Syracuse hasn’t won a doubles point in its last 10 matches — a streak lasting more than a month — and last week head coach Younes Limam split up then-No. 84 Sofya Golubovskaya and Sonya Treshcheva, childhood friends from Russia. Overall, SU has won only nine doubles points this season, three in ACC play.

Still, the Orange find themselves in the NCAA tournament for the third time in four seasons under Limam. Last year, the Orange lost to Wichita State 4-1 in the first round after Knutson said it would be “embarrassing” if they lost.

Wisconsin is led by No. 80 Sara Castellano and No. 123 Lexi Keberle in singles. The Badgers don’t have any ranked doubles pairings.

“I think the most important is to make the NCAA and the second goal is probably to show the higher results in ACC championship,” junior transfer Guzal Yusupova said in March. “And then going forward to play NCAA in good shape.”

Last Thursday, the Orange practiced outside at the Skytop Tennis Complex for the first time this season. In a few days, they’ll travel more than 2,800 miles to the Taube Tennis Center.

 

Published on April 29, 2019 at 6:48 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew