Syracuse Tennis Caps Off Regular Season With Upset Over Florida State

Philip Galati || CitrusTV Tennis Beat Reporter || @philipgalati4

#71 Syracuse women’s tennis ended its regular season on a high note with a 4-3 win over #35 Florida State in Tallahassee on Easter Sunday. Head Coach Younes Limam’s side are now an even 10-10 on the season with some momentum to carry into the postseason.

The Orange are no stranger to winning the doubles point this season, and Sunday was no exception. Though the afternoon started with Viktoriya Kanapatskaya and Ines Fonte winning just one game against Olympe Lancelot and Lesedi Jacobs on the #3 court, #86 Shiori Ito and Sonya Trescheva on court #2 grabbed a 6-2 win over Vic Allen and Kianah Motosono. Thus, it was up to #40 Miyuka Kimoto and Polina Kozyreva, who sealed the opening point of the dual in their return to the #1 court with an emphatic 6-4 victory over #68 Petra Hule and Anna Arkadianou. 

In the singles play, the freshmen got the Orange off to a hot start. Miyuka Kimoto on court #2 won 6-2, 6-1 over Vic Allen, followed shortly by Shiori Ito winning her match 6-3, 6-1 on court #5 against Oklahoma transfer Kianah Motosono, putting SU one point away from the upset. But Florida State were far from out of the fight. Polina Kozyreva lost on court #4 7-5, 6-4 to Lesedi Jacobs, and Zeynep Erman was bested by Anna Arkadianou on court #3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3. The Seminoles then completely erased Cuse’s advantage on the top seeded court, when #7 Petra Hule defeated Viktoriya Kanapatskaya, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-1. The nailbiter of an afternoon came down to the 6th and final court, with two tiebreaks in store. Ines Fonte won her first set 7-6 (7-4), but then dropped her next set 6-3. It came down to a super tiebreaker against Olympe Lancelot, where Fonte dug deep to pull through 7-6 (7-4) and put the Orange back at .500 for the season.

Following Sunday’s win, Syracuse moved all the way up to 10th place in the ACC rankings, meaning it will face Wake Forest in the first round of the conference tournament on April 21 in Rome, GA. The Orange also played the Demon Deacons in the 8/9 game of the ACC Tournament last year and were shut out 5-0, and lost 6-1 to the Deacs back in March. Should they win that game, they will face Duke in the next round. Follow along @CitrusTVSports on Twitter for live tweets starting at 6 pm.