Men’s and women’s tennis drops matches
By Jamie Howell and Julia Bunch / Student Publications
Junior Zachary Rath (right) teamed up with Scott Blackmon to win in doubles against Clemson on Wednesday. Senior Kelly Anderson (left) is ranked in the top 100, sitting at 60.
The women’s tennis team suffered one loss this week, while the men’s team lost twice against higher-ranked opponents.
On Saturday, March 4, the women’s team hosted No. 6 Northwestern at the Bill Moore Tennis Center. Northwestern won the doubles point, but midway through singles play, the score was tied 2-2. Kristi Miller, Lyndsay Shosho and Christy Striplin each went into the third set of their singles matches, while both teams tried to pick up their fourth point to win the match.
Miller, then ranked No. 6 in the nation, defeated No. 10 Cristelle Grier to give the Jackets the 3-2 lead. Miller won 7-6, 3-6, 6-4.
No. 74 Shosho lost to No. 36 Georgia Rose 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. That left the score tied 3-3 with the match residing in the hands of Striplin and opponent Nazlie Ghazal. Striplin lost the first set in a tie-breaker and won the second set, 6-7, 6-3.
After Ghazal broke Striplin’s serve and then held her own, Ghazal led 5-4, Striplin suffered from cramps and used her allotted injury time. After battling through a couple more points and still suffering, Stripling retired the match, which sealed the victory for the Wildcats.
On Tuesday the Jackets looked to rebound against the No. 12 Vanderbilt Commodores. The Jackets came out on top with an impressive 7-0 victory. To secure the doubles point, the pairing of Miller and Shosho and the pairing of Whitney McCray and Kelly Anderson each won their matches before the Jackets would make a sweep in singles competition. Alison Silverio, Miller, McCray and Striplin won in two sets, while Shosho and Anderson took three sets to secure the victory.
This week the men’s team began ACC play and dropped their first two conference matches. On Sunday, the Miami Hurricanes defeated the Jackets 7-0 and on Wednesday the Clemson Tigers won 6-1.
When the Jackets played the Hurricanes, Tech was ranked No. 22 in the nation while Miami stood at No. 17. The lone match that the Jackets won came from the pairing of Marko Rajevac and David North who defeated the pairing of Luigi D’Agord and Daniel Vallverdu 9-7. The Hurricanes, however, picked up the doubles point by winning the other two doubles matches before sweeping all singles matches.
On Wednesday, Tech lost a home match to Clemson 6-1. The Jackets took the 1-0 lead by winning the doubles point, but once again the opponents swept the singles competition.
Scott Blackmon paired with Zachary Rath to win 8-6, while the pairing of Jordan Delass and George Gvelesiani won their doubles match by the same score.
