2008 Woodie Awards
Women's tennis struggling in ACC
Dan Morrison
Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports
The ACC is one of the top conferences for women's tennis in the nation this year, and the Terrapin women's tennis team is finding out the hard way.
The Terps (3-13, 0-7) have dropped their last seven matches, six of them to ACC opponents, with the latest setbacks coming at the hands of Virginia and Virginia Tech over the weekend.
The Terps lost both matches 6-1, but saw a few bright spots in their play. Against the Hokies, the Terps played solidly in the doubles matches, taking two of them down to the wire.
Junior Michal Amir won her singles match against No. 50 Virginia Tech (14-7, 2-5) to avoid the shutout and freshman Oksana Krutiyenko was able to do the same against No. 38 Virginia (8-9, 4-3). Sophomores Lisa Miller and Maggie MacKeever were able to force their singles matches to three sets.
The Terps haven't been playing bad tennis as much as their opponents have been playing well.
After coming up on the short end of a 4-3 match to Boston College over spring break, the Terps couldn't handle the play of Wake Forest and N.C. State during the weekend, losing both matches 6-1. Still without a win in conference play, they are struggling to find positive results against some of the nation's best teams.
"We have to play the top teams to succeed at the highest level," coach Martin Novak said.
The Terps are certainly playing the top teams. So far this spring season they've already faced 11 ranked teams, with matches against highly ranked Georgia Tech, Miami (Fla.), Clemson and Florida State still to come to finish out the ACC schedule.
"We want to get into the sphere of NCAA tournament teams," Novak said. "We're learning every time we go out."
sports@dbk.umd.edu
The Terps (3-13, 0-7) have dropped their last seven matches, six of them to ACC opponents, with the latest setbacks coming at the hands of Virginia and Virginia Tech over the weekend.
The Terps lost both matches 6-1, but saw a few bright spots in their play. Against the Hokies, the Terps played solidly in the doubles matches, taking two of them down to the wire.
Junior Michal Amir won her singles match against No. 50 Virginia Tech (14-7, 2-5) to avoid the shutout and freshman Oksana Krutiyenko was able to do the same against No. 38 Virginia (8-9, 4-3). Sophomores Lisa Miller and Maggie MacKeever were able to force their singles matches to three sets.
The Terps haven't been playing bad tennis as much as their opponents have been playing well.
After coming up on the short end of a 4-3 match to Boston College over spring break, the Terps couldn't handle the play of Wake Forest and N.C. State during the weekend, losing both matches 6-1. Still without a win in conference play, they are struggling to find positive results against some of the nation's best teams.
"We have to play the top teams to succeed at the highest level," coach Martin Novak said.
The Terps are certainly playing the top teams. So far this spring season they've already faced 11 ranked teams, with matches against highly ranked Georgia Tech, Miami (Fla.), Clemson and Florida State still to come to finish out the ACC schedule.
"We want to get into the sphere of NCAA tournament teams," Novak said. "We're learning every time we go out."
sports@dbk.umd.edu
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