The University of Connecticut tennis team had a difficult weekend, losing both of their meets to very talented squads. On Friday, though the deficit was narrow in reality, they only took one set as they lost to St. John’s 6-1 in Flushing Meadow, NY. On Sunday, the Huskies were overmatched by a nationally ranked Boston University team that made it difficult for them to get anything started, as they lost the meet in a 7-0 sweep. The Huskies had a rough go of it, and for much of the weekend, it felt like they couldn’t do very much to change their fate.
Friday at the USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center started off pretty poorly for UConn, as they struggled in doubles. 1-doubles team Olivia Wright and Maria Constantinou fought hard, but they just came up short in the tiebreaker, losing 7-5. 2-doubles lost as well, and the 3-doubles match was left unfinished as the Huskies couldn’t grab a victory there. Their lack of success continued as they pushed into the singles portion of the day’s festivities. 3-singles Isabel Petri Bere had one of the closest sets of the season, going 4-6 and 6-3 in the first two sets against SJU’s Mouna Bouzgarrou. However, after an intense super tiebreaker, Petri Bere was finally defeated in the war of attrition in an epic 10-8 final set. Though Cameron Didion once again managed to win her match 6-3 and 6-2, UConn struggled to take any momentum off of that and lost the rest of the way. There were moments where the day felt like it could go either way, but the Red Storm managed to hold their own and win in big fashion.
The match against Boston University, on other hand, was a pretty thorough domination on the Terriers’ end. BU cleaned up the doubles point pretty easily, taking the 1-doubles set 6-4 and the 2-doubles set 6-3. The singles competition was nearly as clean: Boston’s 2-singles Michelle Kleynerman and 4-singles Kaitlin Tan showed out, only losing three games between them. Most of the rest of the matches were the same with the exception of the 6-singles bout between UConn’s Doga Selen Takunyaci and BU’s Sydney Sharma. After both players took sets in commanding fashion, they went down to a super tiebreaker, where much like in the last meet’s 3-singles set, UConn’s side just barely couldn’t hang on, losing 10-4. Unfortunately for the visitors, the ball didn’t bounce the way of the Huskies.
Those were both pretty frustrating losses for a Connecticut team that was not too long ago celebrating a win streak of five games. There still is plenty of time left in the season, however, and they can reverse the tide. That momentum shift starts by taking advantage of their next matchup, which is on Wednesday against Sacred Heart University.
