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Tennis

No. 31 Syracuse easily handled by No. 4 Duke

Corey Henry | Staff Photographer

Gabriela Knutson reaches back to hit a return in a match earlier this season.

No. 31 Syracuse entered the road bout with No. 4 Duke 2-8 against ranked opponents, losing eight of those last nine. The Orange (12-10, 5-8 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t end that trend in Durham, North Carolina, as the Blue Devils (20-2, 12-1) dominated SU 6-1.

No. 90 Sofya Golubovskaya and Sonya Trescheva fell 6-3 to Duke’s No. 23 ranked paring to start off doubles. While the No. 56 pairing of Gabriela Knutson and Miranda Ramirez defeated Duke’s No. 69 duo 6-4, the Orange couldn’t hold on for the doubles victory as on Court 3, Guzal Yusupova and Masha Tritou lost 6-4. With the doubles loss, Syracuse has still not won a doubles point since March 15 against Virginia Tech.

The Blue Devils got off to a hot start on the backcourts in singles. Libi Mesh fell 6-0 in her first set at fifth singles, as did Dina Hegab at sixth. Their respective second sets did not go much better as they each lost 6-2. Before Hegab’s match ended, however, No. 100 Ramirez had also lost. She put up a fight in the first set losing only 6-4, but No. 32 Kelly Chen won the second 6-1.

Already up 4-0, Duke won the fifth point when Yusupova lost 6-3, 6-3. The remaining sets went to pro-set tiebreakers in lieu of a third set. Golubovskaya, after winning 6-2 then losing 6-2, lost the tiebreaker 10-8 to No. 18 Meible Chi. However, the Orange won their first point as No. 19 Knutson defeated No. 13 Maria Mateas 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (10-8).

The Orange will close out the regular season on the road on Sunday against the Clemson Tigers. Syracuse will look to build up momentum it can bring into the ACC tournament which begins on Wednesday.







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