The Virginia women’s tennis team continued their home stand to start the season with a solid weekend, picking up a conference win over Syracuse before falling to No. 21 South Carolina.
The win over Syracuse (1-4, 0-1 ACC) was a dominating one, as Virginia (2-3, 2-0 ACC) cruised to a 6-1 victory.
The Cavaliers won the doubles point to take the early lead, then ran away with the match by winning five of their six singles matches. Junior Cassie Mercer joined freshmen Rosie Johanson, Chloe Gullickson, Hunter Bleser and Camille Favero as winners in singles play.
Coach Guilbeau talked about how Virginia was able to use a solid week of practice to play smart tennis.
“There are some specific things that we did during the week, and the girls implemented that pretty well,” Guilbeau said. “We were trying to be a little bit more assertive with our position on the baseline, and through that process — I call it stalking the court — you kind of take advantage of your good shots and when you hurt the opponent, then you really try to take the court away.”
After a big conference win on Saturday, the Cavaliers were unable to build any momentum Sunday, as they fell to South Carolina (5-1, 0-0 SEC) in a tough 4-1 loss.
Despite the loss, Mercer talked about how Virginia saw Sunday’s match as a good opportunity to showcase many of the improvements that they have made.
“I mean, I think, just another really good opportunity,” Mercer said. “We know they’re a really good team, we play them all the time, and so every match is a good opportunity to come out and do the things we’ve improved on.”
Guilbeau talked about how Virginia was unable to match South Carolina’s tempo, contributing to some of Virginia’s struggles.
“To credit South Carolina, that’s a team that’s got a little more tempo, and they bring the ball a little bit deeper, a little bit harder, a little bit more repetitively and so that’s what I was telling our girls — we’re doing the right things, but we have to learn to do them earlier, faster and more often, and more repetitively,” Guilbeau said.
Mercer added that she felt as if the Gamecocks came out of the gate with a little more energy, allowing them to take the early lead.
“I think they’re just a really energetic team and they come ready to play, so from the beginning they might have gotten on top of us a little bit. Maybe if we could match that energy from the beginning, it would have made a difference,” Mercer said.
Guilbeau seemed to echo those sentiments, talking about how one reason for Virginia’s struggles Sunday could be viewed as effort-based. He added that he believed this could be a positive for the team, in that once Virginia was able to increase its effort, its play improved drastically, offering hope for what could be if the team is more consistent in that manner.
“Yeah, I mean I think that even probably one of the most challenging difficulties in the match was — in some ways — effort-based,” Guilbeau said. “You know we didn’t have the best effort in doubles, and then once we did, the level was amazing. I would say ‘okay man, I’m going to be positive about increasing my effort,’ and we saw that even though it didn’t get us the point.”
Guilbeau believed that losing the doubles point hurt the Cavaliers on Sunday, especially against a team where every opportunity to put a point on the board is crucial.
“You know that point hurt us bad,” Guilbeau said. “We were playing a good team, you can’t really afford [to lose a point], when you have a chance to be in there with them.”
Virginia will now get almost two weeks off before taking on UPenn and Old Dominion in a double header on the road. That match will take place Feb. 18 in Norfolk, Va.
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