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After battling back from a 3-0 deficit, freshman duo Shiori Ito and Miyuka Kimoto trailed 3-2 in the No. 2 doubles spot before the momentum shifted back to Penn State. A long rally ended with Ito hitting the ball into the net and smacking her hand against her forehead in frustration as she shuffled back into position.

The pair proceeded to drop their doubles match 6-4, losing the doubles point for SU.

Penn State ultimately won the game in decisive fashion with a score of 5-2. The Orange’s No. 1 doubles pair, featuring junior Polina Kozyreva and senior Sofya Treshcheva, fell 6-2 to Penn State’s Karly Friedland and Alexandra Nielsen, while No. 3 doubles, with sophomores Viktoriya Kanapatskaya and Ines Fonte, dominated Olivia Ryan and Yvonna Zuffova 6-0. After losing the doubles point, SU was only able to win two of its six singles matches, featuring a complete overpowering of Penn State’s Deanna Lasorda by Kozyreva in the No. 5 singles spot.

“She (Kozyreva) did a fantastic job this weekend,” Syracuse head coach Younes Limam said. “She controlled what she could control, and now she needs to keep building her confidence and momentum.”

Kozyreva used her superior power and agility to pummel Lasorda 6-0, 6-1, winning the match before many had even begun their second set.

Ito was the other SU player to win her singles match, battling back from a 6-2 loss in her first set to win the last two 6-3 and 6-4. Her opponent, Alina Lebedeva, was one of few players who regularly sliced on their forehand, which took Ito some time to adjust towards, according to Limam.

“Once she got going, her plan was to start coming in on the opponent’s forehand and expecting an overhead because she (Lebedeva) was lobbing a lot,” Limam said. “Confidence comes from winning, so this will be big for her.”

Fonte was battling alongside Ito after all the other matches had ended, and even though she didn’t come out victorious, she managed to keep it close.

Every set in her match against Nielsen went into a tiebreaker, but Fonte ultimately lost. Fonte dropped the first tiebreaker 7-3, won the second 7-0, and then ran out of steam, losing the last tiebreaker 10-3.

“I was very proud of their fight and resilience,” Limam said. “When things don’t go your way, it’s easy to let go, but I couldn’t be prouder of the two (Ito and Fonte) that were still battling.”

While Syracuse had a lot of positives come from these matches, there may be cause for concern with their No.1 doubles player, Kanapatskaya. The Orange’s only nationally ranked singles player, Kanapatskaya lost her second straight match on Sunday against Penn State’s Sofiya Chekhlystova. She dropped both sets 6-2 after losing two straight sets yesterday as well.

Kanapatskaya was consistently missing long during rallies and was visibly frustrated during the match. She began doing dry swings in between sets to get her mechanics down. Unranked Chekhlystova showed tremendous ball placement and power while keeping rallies alive with consistency. Kanapatskaya will look to bounce back next weekend when the Orange take on Cornell at home.

Sophomore Treshcheva lost 6-0, 6-1 to Gabrielle O’Gorman, showing little resilience. And finally, Kimoto fell to Zuffova 6-2, 6-1. Zuffova kept Kimoto on the move throughout the whole match, often hitting balls to the spot Kimoto had just left. Kimoto was frustrated by the pristine ball placement but continued to run the court with immense effort.

“We saw a lot of good things today,” Limam said. “These situations that they were in today, they are going to have those down the road, so this was good practice.”

Published on January 23, 2022 at 7:20 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu