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Syracuse bounced back after two consecutive home losses against No. 1 North Carolina and No. 14 Duke and defeated Marshall 6-1 on Sunday in Huntington, West Virginia. SU Athletics announced the match between the Orange and the Thundering Herd on Saturday, and it was not on SU’s original schedule.

Syracuse (7-10, 5-8 ACC) entered Sunday’s finale winning about 82% of matches in which they won the doubles round. This trend continued against Marshall, as Syracuse took the doubles point and five of the Orange’s six singles players won their respective matches. Miranda Ramirez was Syracuse’s only singles loss, dropping sets 3-6 and 3-6 to Marshall’s Liz Stefanic.

Polina Kozyreva and Sofya Treshcheva were back in the No. 1 doubles spot after losses at No. 2 doubles against UNC and Duke. The switch-up proved ineffective, as the pair was unable to find success and lost 4-6 to Marshall’s Stefanic and Jutte Van Hansewyck.

Despite dropping the No. 1 doubles match, Syracuse came back with consecutive victories at the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles spots to take the doubles point.

Natalie Novotna and Viktoriya Kanapatskaya defeated Marshall’s Anna Smith and Daniela Dankanych 6-4, picking up their first doubles win in four matches.

Ramirez returned to the team after missing Syracuse’s matches against North Carolina and Duke due to contact tracing. Ramirez paired with Guzal Yusupova for their ninth match together this year and defeated Madi Ballow and Madison Riley 6-4.

Moving up nine spots to become the No. 14- ranked singles player in the nation, Kanapatskaya capped off an impressive freshman season as she cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Smith.

Zeynep Erman remained in the singles lineup for the third straight match. Erman has won three consecutive singles matches since earning her spot in the team’s lineup again in the North Carolina match. She defeated Marshall’s Van Hansewyck 6-2, 6-1 at No. 5 singles.

Novotna and Kozyreva also earned straight-set victories with the same scoreline as Erman, both winning 6-2, 6-1 at No. 3 and No. 6 singles, respectively.

Yusupova was the last to finish in the singles round, defeating Dankanych 6-2, 5-7, (10-3). Despite Yusupova winning the first set 6-2, Dankanych forced a third after fighting back from being down 4-5 to win the next 3 games and take the set 7-5. Given that the match was already decided at that point, a 10-point match tiebreaker was played instead of a third set. Yusupova dominated the tiebreak, winning 10-3 and sealing a 6-1 victory for Syracuse.

The ACC tournament is scheduled to start on Wednesday. Match-ups and a full schedule for the tournament have yet to be released.

Published on April 18, 2021 at 4:25 pm

Contact Bryan: brbrush@syr.edu