Dina Hegab sat in her class on Monday night and kept refreshing her phone. She tried to be courteous to the others presenting but was anxious to find out Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament seed and opponent. At 6:48 p.m., as “Syracuse” appeared underneath Wisconsin on the selection show board, Hegab’s questions were answered.

After falling to then-No. 1 North Carolina in the ACC tournament quarterfinals, the Orange earned the two-seed in Stanford’s region. No. 31 Syracuse (13-12, 5-9 Atlantic Coast) will face No. 35 Wisconsin (18-5, 9-2 Big 10) in a first-round match Saturday at 12 p.m.

Here’s what to know before Saturday’s matchup.

Last time they played: This is the first-ever meeting between the Badgers and SU. Earlier in the season, the Orange knocked off then-No. 9 Michigan 4-2 and lost to then-No. 16 Ohio State 5-2 in their first two matchups against Big Ten opponents this season.

The Wisconsin Report: The Badgers enter Saturday’s match winners of five of their last seven matches. Wisconsin lost to No. 30 Illinois 4-0 in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament last Saturday but still earned its first bid to the NCAA Tournament since 2005. No. 88 Sara Castellano held the top singles slot for all 23 matches this season and enters with a 14-7 record, highest of her career. The redshirt senior transferred from Kansas State after two seasons and played at second singles last season before jumping to the top spot.

Wisconsin and Syracuse had two opponents in common this year: OSU and Purdue. The Badgers lost to the Buckeyes 6-1 and defeated the Boilermakers 5-2; the Orange also defeated the Boilermakers, 4-3, to clinch a spot in the ITA National Indoor Team Championship.

How Syracuse Beats Wisconsin: It starts with the doubles point. All season, SU head coach Younes Limam has stressed the importance of that first point, one that Syracuse has won only nine times. In matches it wins the doubles point this season, SU is undefeated. In the ACC tournament, Limam split up his second and third pairs, despite Sonya Treshcheva and Sofya Golubovskaya’s then-No. 84 ranking, but still lost the point in both matches.

Gabriela Knutson and Miranda Ramirez, SU’s top pairing, peaked at No. 8 in the ITA doubles rankings last season and became the first All-American doubles pairing in program history, but are just 13-10 this season with a high ranking of No. 55. At one point during ACC play, the duo lost five consecutive matches. By taking the doubles point, it relives the pressure to produce four singles victories, something the Orange have done only four times since conference play started on Feb. 22.

Stat to Know: 5 — The number of Wisconsin players who have tallied more than 14 wins in singles, compared to three from SU. After Syracuse’s first match against Brown on Jan. 19, and after many others that followed, Limam praised the Orange’s depth. He said that SU is capable of picking up points at any singles slot. However, in the ACC tournament, the Orange went just 2-6 at its bottom-four singles slots.

Player to Watch: Ava Markham

The holder of Wisconsin’s best singles record this season isn’t Castellano, it’s Markham’s 19-4 mark at fourth and fifth singles — primarily fourth — that holds the top spot. Markham, a freshman from Demarest, New Jersey was a five-star recruit and ranked No. 43 in her class, according to tennisrecruiting.net. For 17 of Syracuse’s 25 matches, that fourth spot has been held by Guzal Yusupova, a junior transfer from Washington State, and her 8-9 record. All together, that fourth singles slot is 10-14 for the season, one that will likely need a win on Saturday for the Orange to advance past the first round.

 

Published on May 2, 2019 at 6:54 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew