As the Missouri tennis team beat Syracuse’s Masha Kabanova and Shervin Saedinia in a tiebreaker to decide the doubles portion of Saturday’s match, SU coach Mac Gifford turned to a handful of spectators and asked, ‘Remember this team?’

Indeed, they remembered the Tigers all too well. Missouri edged Syracuse last year, 4-3, and since, the teams have developed a rivalry. Despite SU’s preparations, Saturday’s match at Drumlins Tennis Center yielded similar results, as Missouri handed SU a 5-2 loss.

The teams split the first two doubles matches, leaving it up to Saedinia and Kabanova to win a decisive match against Missouri’s Urska Juric and Katka Sevcikova. It was a rematch of last year’s top doubles match, which Syracuse lost, 8-6. This year, SU fought the Missouri duo to a tiebreaker but lost, 9-8 (8-6).

‘They’re a little bit stronger singles-wise, so we needed to win the doubles match,’ Gifford said. ‘(Saedinia and Kabanova) have been playing together for so long. They’re a little frustrated that they go up against these good teams, and they haven’t pulled it off.’

‘That’s as much as we’ve been pushed since we played Stanford at the National Indoors,” Missouri coach Blake Starkey said. “We were really in trouble at that one doubles spot. It would have been a different match if they had gotten the doubles point.’

The win gave Missouri the doubles point and the momentum for the remainder of the match. The nail-biter loss in the No. 1 doubles match was a gut punch for Syracuse, Starkey said, knocking the wind out of the Orangewomen and allowing Missouri to control the singles matches.

Four of the six singles matches lasted more than two hours, Gifford said, but Syracuse only managed wins in two. Kabanova won her match (3-6, 6-2, 6-2). Sophomore Kristine Bech Holte also won (7-5, 6-4).

Meanwhile, Saedinia, senior Daniela Kaluskova, sophomore Trine Lise Juliussen and freshman Wei-Ming Leong lost in straight sets.

Missouri has been strong in singles all season, Starkey said. The Tigers added two talented players to the lineup this year, he added, and didn’t graduate any significant contributors.

‘I’m never happy with losing,’ Gifford said. ‘But I’ve been coaching long enough to know that if a team goes out and does the best it can, and they come close, they start to realize that we can do this. That’s where they’re at right now.”

Missouri and Syracuse have yet to schedule the next meeting, but after a second close defeat, SU will no doubt be even hungrier for a win next time.

‘What I enjoy is a good fight,’ Gifford said. ‘And I think we can see that this was a good fight.’

Published on March 23, 2003 at 12:00 pm