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After its original conference opener against Boston College was postponed last Saturday, Syracuse’s first Atlantic Coast Conference match was instead played on Friday at Virginia Tech. But the Orange fell to the Hokies 4-3.

Syracuse entered conference play with just one loss to Penn State in its first seven nonconference matchups. Friday’s match was one of the few times where the Orange won the doubles point but lost the match. Last season, when the Orange didn’t win in doubles, it lost 84.6% of its matchups, and when they did secure the doubles point, it usually resulted in a victory.

SU won all three of its doubles matches against Virginia Tech. Shiori Ito and Sofya Treshcheva along with Miyuka Kimoto and Polina Kozyreva both won 6-3, while the pairing of Ines Fonte and Viktoriya Kanapatskaya won 5-4 as the match was unfinished.

Syracuse lost after dropping four of its six singles matches, with the last match going to a third set to decide the match which was tied at 3-3. Kimoto and Virginia Tech’s Elizabet Danailova battled out three sets in the No. 2 singles spot, Danailova taking the first set 6-2 while Kimoto won the second 7-5. Kimoto ultimately fell 7-5 in the final set. 

The other Orange player to win her singles match was Kanapatskaya in the No. 1 singles spot, winning 6-4 and 6-3 in straight sets. Kanapatskaya is 5-2 this season in singles matches. 

The four remaining singles matches all ended in SU losses. Sofya Treshcheva lost in a tiebreak of her first set 7-6 before recording only winning two games in her second set, falling 6-2 against Dariya Radulova. 

Meanwhile, Kozyreva dropped only her first singles match of the season, losing 6-3 in straight sets to Rita Pinto. No. 5 Ito also lost in straight sets, finishing both 7-5 against Erika Cheng. 

Lastly, No. 6 singles Fonte lost in straight sets as well, falling 6-3 and 6-4 to sophomore Katie Andreini. 

Syracuse returns to ACC play at Virginia on Sunday at 11 a.m.

Published on February 25, 2022 at 9:11 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu