The UConn women’s tennis team broke their five game losing streak with a tightly contested road win at Providence on Wednesday afternoon. This weekend, the Huskies looked to carry the momentum over into two more road matches in Big East Conference play. UConn traveled to the nation’s capital to face Georgetown on Saturday afternoon in the first match of a back-to-back before shipping up to Philadelphia to take on Villanova.
Senior Julieanne Bou battled in the Singles No. 1 matchup against the Hoyas’ Avantika Willy but fell in straight sets 3-6, 4-6, falling to 15-10 on the season. Despite strong play as of late, it was more of the same for sophomore Leonie Hoppe in Singles No. 2, suffering a defeat at the hands of Chloe Bendetti 4-6, 3-6. The Huskies gained a point thanks to Aleksandra Karamyshev, as the sophomore from Maryland took care of business in Singles No. 3 against McHaley Ho, in a three set battle, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. Unfortunately for UConn, that was the lone bright spot in the singles matches.
Caroline Cook dropped her third match in a row in Singles No. 4, winning the first set before losing 6-3, 5-7, 3-6 to Agata Mikos. Georgetown’s Carmen Aizupura won her match in Singles No. 5 against Isabel Petri Bere in straight sets, as the freshman from Sweden fell 2-6, 6-7. Denise Lai’s cold spell continued, pushing the Singles No. 6 match to a third set against Morgan Coburn, eventually suffering a defeat by a score of 2-6, 6-3, 4-10.
Despite Cook and Lai winning their Doubles No. 3 match against Mikos and Avantika Willy 6-2, that was all the Huskies could muster, as Bou and Hoppe lost their matchup in No. 1 against Ho and Bendetti, as well as the Hoya duo of Olivia Ashton and Coburn taking care of business against Karamyshev and Petri Bere, 6-4.
The Huskies continued their road trip in Philadelphia, facing conference opponent Villanova. UConn, on the back of strong performances from two duos, Bou/Hoppe and Karamyshev/Petri Bere, took the doubles point, defeating the Wildcats in Doubles Nos. 1 and 2, both by scores of 6-2.
In singles, Bou fell to Nova’s Annalise Klopfer in straight sets, 0-6, 1-6, in No. 1. Karamyshev and Petri Bere gained points for the Huskies in singles Nos. 2 and 5, respectively with the former taking care of business 7-6, 7-5, and the latter also winning in straight sets, 7-6, 6-1. However, Caitlin Fisher, Valieriia Kornieva and A. Rivera Gonzalez defeated Hoppe, Cook and Doga Selen Takunyaci in the other singles matches to give Villanova the close victory, 4-3. Both Hoppe and Selen Takunyaci went the distance in their matches, but both came up short in their quest to give UConn a road win.
The Huskies will return home on Wednesday, April 13th, to take on the University of Massachusetts in a non-conference match. This is the second-to-last home matchup for UConn in the regular season before concluding with a road match in Kingston, Rhode Island against the University of Rhode Island Rams.
