At the ITA Kickoff weekend, University of Miami women’s tennis took their first loss of the season.
After a dominant 7-0 opening win against FGCU, the University of Miami women’s tennis team fell 4-1 to the South Carolina Gamecocks on Jan. 23 in Durham, N.C.
Miami got off to a rough start, getting swept across the doubles courts. UM’s Ela Plosnik and Aely Arai kept their match close, only down 4-5, but the duos of Dominika Podhajecka and Raquel Gonzalez as well as Sebastianna Sciilipoti and Maria Vargas fell 3-6, losing Miami the doubles point.
Moving over to singles play, Miami got their first win when Daria Volosova took down Jana Sojanova 7-5 and 6-2 on court six; South Carolina’s Sojanova was undefeated in singles play up to this point.
However, across the rest of the courts, Miami struggled. Arai fell 3-6, 3-6; Plosnik dropped her match 4-6, 3-6; and South Carolina clinched the win when Goetz took down Scilipoti 6-2, 7-5.
When play stopped, Podhajecka was in a close, tightly fought match. Battling Jane Dunyon in a back-and-forth series that was 4-3 Dunyon in the third set. Along with her, No. 100 Gonzalez was down against No. 54 Kaitlyn Carnicella after losing the first set 5-7 and was down in the second set 4-5.
Miami (1-1), will return home to the Neil Schiff Tennis Center for a series of in-state matchups. The first of which will be against the FIU Panthers, in their opening match of the season. The Hurricanes will face off against the Panthers on Jan. 30 at 11:00 a.m.