Syracuse falls 5-2 to No. 5 Virginia
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Friday afternoon in Charlottesville, SU failed to register a single set in four of six singles matches, leading to its fifth Atlantic Coast Conference loss. No. 5 Virginia (14-2, 5-0 ACC) defeated Syracuse (9-6, 3-5) 5-2.
Entering their match against the Cavaliers, the Orange had yet to win the doubles point against an ACC opponent. Viktoriya Kanapatskaya and Miyuka Kimoto outlasted Elaine Chervinsky and Melodie Collard 6-2 to win their doubles match, but the rest of the team could not capitalize. Polina Kozyreva and Anastasia Sysoeva fell to Natasha Subhash and Hibah Shaikh 3-6. Similarly, Shiori Ito and Emilie Elde lost by the same score to Meggie Navarro and Sara Ziodato.
Kimoto starred for the Orange. After a strong doubles performance, the junior followed it up in her singles match versus Shaikh. Kimoto lost the first set 1-6. It appeared it was going to be just like most of the other matches for Syracuse. Then in the second set, Kimoto and Shaikh went back and forth before Kimoto sneaked by in the tiebreaker to win the second set 7-6.
With the overall match already in the hands of Virginia, Kimoto and Shaikh played a tiebreaker in place of the traditional third set. Kimoto prevailed 10-8 to take the match.
Kozyreva bounced back from her doubles match for a strong performance in singles. The graduate student was the only SU player to win her first set, beating Subhash 6-1. After cruising to the first set victory, Kozyreva lost her footing and let her opponent get back into the match. Subhash beat Kozyreva 6-2 to send the match to another winner-take-all. In the tiebreaker, Kozyreva made a late surge to win the match.
Sysoeva, Ito and Constance Levivier won a combined four games in their matches. Levivier lost to Collard 1-6, 0-6. Ito was unable to handle Chervinsky, losing 0-6, 2-6, and Sysoeva fell to Ziodato 0-6, 1-6.
Elde didn’t fare much better. After losing the first set 2-6, she won a couple of games early on in the second set but was unable to stop Annabelle Xu, falling in the second set 2-6 for a fourth Virginia sweep.
