After a five-meet losing streak, the UConn women’s tennis team defeated Providence College Wednesday afternoon by a 4-3 final. Two weeks of losing finally got to the team, and they broke out of their funk with a narrow win against the Friars in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Huskies got their momentum early, taking the doubles point thanks to outstanding performances from both the pairings of Caroline Cook with Denise Lai and Isabel Petri Bere with Doga Selen Takunyaci, as they combined to only lose one game. The team would follow that by battling hard in singles, splitting matches 3-3. Petri Bere and Takunyaci took home victories, just as they did in doubles, as well as Aleksandra Karamyshev. Though the matches were close and well-fought, their opponents went down in two sets, proving that they were dominant when it came time to close out victories.
“This was a nice win over a conference opponent,” said Glenn Marshall, the director of tennis at UConn. “PC played tough and fought hard all the way up until the end. I was pleased with the result and the team’s effort today.”
Having found their footing again, the Huskies look to meet their opponents this weekend with as much as they did against Providence. The first matchup of their road trip is against Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The Hoyas have had a rough start to the season, coming into the meet with a 6-12 overall record and a 2-3 record against Big East opponents. Don’t let the record fool you, though: after starting the season on a nine-meet skid, Georgetown has put together a much better 6-3 mark since, including a 7-0 drubbing of the very same Providence College team that UConn had some difficulty with. Most recently, Georgetown lost to Towson University in a nailbiter 3-4, where it was edged by the Tigers on the singles side of the day. When UConn and Georgetown meet this Saturday at 11 a.m., it will likely be a tough matchup.
The second of the Huskies’ rivals this weekend is Villanova University, as UConn will be traveling from DC to Villanova, Pennsylvania to face yet another Big East foe. ‘Nova comes into Sunday’s meeting with a 3-7 overall record and a 1-1 Big East record, not having too much success during the 2022 calendar year. The Wildcats also started the year cold, losing their first seven meets, but have not made up for that nearly as much as the Hoyas did their losing streak, only going 3-2 since. Most recently, they faced St. Joseph’s University this past Tuesday, claiming victory in a narrow 4-3 fashion. This will likely be the easier meet of the road trip, but don’t underestimate a team starved of winning: it usually has the most to play for after not meeting expectations three-quarters of the way into the season.
These two meets should prove valuable in the long run for the UConn women, as the contests will act as tests to see how much further the team has come since the beginning of the streak of losing they recently went on. Though the Huskies sit at a .500 record, they all are, as Director Marshal put it: “Looking forward to the weekend at Georgetown and Villanova for two more conference matches.”
