TENNIS : After falling to William and Mary, SU bounces back for defining win over No. 25 Yale
Photo/Mark Nash
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam vitae ullamcorper velit. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae;.
Aleah Marrow dropped her racket in a mixture of triumph and fatigue as her teammates rushed on court to celebrate.
Syracuse had just knocked off No. 25 Yale to claim the biggest win in school history. Yet the Orange’s weekend did not start nearly as well as it ended.
‘We came up short against William and Mary, but we learned a ton,’ head coach Luke Jensen said.
In losing to No. 59 William and Mary (2-7) on Friday night, Syracuse (8-4, 3-1 Big East) came out flat and got burned, 5-2, dropping its first match at Drumlins Tennis Center since Feb. 22, 2009. SU put itself in a 1-0 hole by dropping the opening doubles point, only to have three of its six singles players lose their first service games. The players struggled playing from behind in the match, as William and Mary’s lead allowed its players to take risks that the Orange could not. But on Sunday, a dominating doubles win by Emily Harman and Alessondra Parra paced a series of strong starts and ensured the Orange would not be so hamstrung. Marrow won the deciding match as Syracuse registered a historic 4-3 victory over Yale (7-2).
On Friday, Marrow and doubles partner Maddie Kobelt each dropped their serve to start their No. 2 doubles match against William and Mary’s Anik Cepeda and Hope Johnson. In an eight-game pro set, the deficit was massive. Though Kobelt and Marrow fought back, their slow start kept them from ever taking control of the match.
‘When we were making our comeback it really made a difference that we were down in that hole,’ Kobelt said after Friday’s loss. ‘But I think that, you know, we can just learn from that, move on and just carry into Sunday’s match, you know, we got to get off to a better start.’
Within minutes of the end of Friday’s match, Jensen and associate head coach Shelley George sat down with Marrow. She hadn’t played singles since Feb. 4, when she lost against Ohio State. Her family came up this weekend from Durham, N.C., and she wanted to play.
Jensen was wary of playing Marrow in doubles and singles against Yale, as she was nursing a strained patellar tendon. The sophomore told her coach she could play.
Marrow and her teammates got off to quick starts in both doubles and singles. Harman and Parra broke their opponents’ serve in No. 1 doubles, establishing early momentum. Marrow and Kobelt did the same.
The leads gave the Orange a tactical advantage, especially in singles. Playing with the lead allows players to go for more shots while their opponents are forced to absorb the pressure. This advantage was amplified playing against an already defensive Yale, Jensen said.
With the team match tied at 3-3, Marrow’s third set at No. 6 singles against Amber Li would be the decider. Marrow adjusted to Li’s counter-punching strategy by playing hard groundstrokes through the middle of the court, giving Li less angles to work with.
‘We knew their style was more of a defensive style. We’re way more offensive. We’re looking to hit our shots,’ Jensen said. ‘We’re gonna play on our terms.’
The tactic worked. Li coughed up several loose groundstrokes that either flew long for errors or were punished with sharp returns from Marrow. A hold and two breaks later, Marrow found herself serving up 3-0. The cushion proved necessary, as Li forced a tiebreak to decide the match.
Once more, Marrow jumped out to a lead, 4-1, but never looked back, closing out the tiebreak 7-2 and clinching the biggest win in the program’s history.
The day was kick-started by Harman and Parra’s 32-minute win over No. 27 Hanna Yu and Vicky Brook in No. 1 doubles.
‘For us to win big showed our team we can do this and to show Yale that we’re here to play, and I think Yale was a little bit kind of taken aback after that, and we just took them in singles,’ Harman said.
After William and Mary broke a nearly three-year home winning streak for the Orange, the win over Yale gives SU something to hang its hat on.
‘We’re not talking that we’re good. We’re actually starting to perform at a level with these types of teams,’ Jensen said. ‘…We’ll never forget this one.’