Syracuse tennis loses gritty 4-2 match to SMU, suffers 3rd ACC defeat
Syracuse tennis lost 4-2 to SMU Sunday, despite a strong showing from Monika Wojcik. It was SU’s third ACC loss. Charlie Hynes | Staff Photographer
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For a brief moment, Syracuse had a glimmer of hope. The Orange were hanging tough on Sunday, and managed to keep pace with SMU through the first half of their match.
But that promising start proved to be a facade.
Syracuse (5-6, 1-3 Atlantic Coast) faltered in its later matches, dropping Sunday’s match 4-2 to the Mustangs (9-4, 3-3 ACC). Despite the defeat, however, the Orange made SMU sweat in a contest filled with long, intense matches.
The battles started right away in doubles. Syracuse sent out its usual lineup, with Anastasia Sysoeva and Nelly Knezkova in the No. 1 match against SMU’s pairing of Caroline McGinley and Amelie Van Impe.
McGinley and Van Impe entered Sunday with a sterling 9-0 record. But that didn’t deter Sysoeva and Knezkova, who jumped out right away and won the first game handily.
Despite the Orange’s top duo getting out to an early lead, the Mustangs’ undefeated tandem later took control of the match, winning by a sizable four game margin.
With Knezkova and Sysoeva neutralized, it was up to Monika Wojcik and Serafima Shastova to create some momentum for SU. While they initially stormed out to a 4-1 lead, it was all SMU the rest of the way. Natalie Stasny and Sophie Llewellyn stormed back, winning five straight games to take the match — and the doubles point — with a 6-4 victory.
“When we got that lead, they started getting more aggressive,” Syracuse coach Younes Limam said. “It’s a matter of making things happen, instead of waiting for them to happen to us.”
Like Shastova and Wojcik, Syracuse’s third pairing — Leena Bennetto and Constance Levivier — went up early with a 3-1 advantage. The Mustangs’ third pairing of Ellie Mireles and Addison Comiskey came back into the match, eventually forcing a tiebreaker game with the score at 6-5.
Eventually, Bennetto and Levivier ended up winning their match. But with the point already safely in SMU’s hands, the result was rendered moot.
In singles, Sysoeva was back in the No. 1 slot for Syracuse, taking on one of the ACC’s biggest freshman stars in Van Impe. Sysoeva came out hot early in the first set, jumping to a 4-2 lead early.
But like with the doubles matches, Van Impe stuck around in the first set, tying the first set at 5-5. The freshman would come back to tie the match at 6-6, forcing a first-set tiebreaker game, and after a battle that lasted nearly an hour, Van Impe completed her comeback to win the first set 7-6.
“(Sysoeva) put her heart and soul into that match.” Limam said. “A few points here and there could have totally changed the trajectory of this match.”
After winning the first set, Van Impe found another gear. She jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the second set and never looked back, though her match ended with her just one point away from victory.
Once again, it was Wojcik who got Syracuse going early. The sophomore won a 6-2 first set over Mireles and continued her strong push into the second set. Mireles made it interesting down the stretch, forcing a tiebreaker game to decide the second set, but Wojcik ended up winning her match in straight sets (6-2, 7-6) to cut SU’s deficit to 3-2.
For all the effort displayed in those contests, not all the matches were nearly as gritty. Leena Bennetto dominated Stasny in straight sets (6-2, 6-2) in a match that was never in doubt, while Emma Scaldalai lost in similar fashion (6-1, 6-4) to Comiskey.
Shastova’s struggles in singles play continued, as she fell to Llewellyn in straight sets as well. Coming off a season in which she was arguably the top player for the Orange, Shastova has played to a 4-5 record in nine appearances for Syracuse.
She was visibly upset following the match.
It was a disappointing day for Syracuse. SU competed all day, kept its energy up, and gave a quality team a run for its money for the first time all season. As the Orange head into a two-week break, there are a lot of positives for them to take from this match.
But the sting of defeat will remain.
