Women’s tennis falls on road; remains undefeated at home
With a perfect home record intact, the VCU women’s tennis team came up short on the road against Wake Forest University, 5-2, where only two Rams managed to grab wins in singles competition on Saturday, Feb. 7.
Peter Mason
Contributing Writer
With a perfect home record intact, the VCU women’s tennis team came up short on the road against Wake Forest University, 5-2, where only two Rams managed to grab wins in singles competition on Saturday, Feb. 7.
Against the Demon Deacons, seniors Cindy Chala and Salome Kvitashvili tallied the wins for the two points the Rams were able to manage in the first two singles matches. Chala tallied the first win over Wake Forest’s sophomore Kimmy Guerin, and Kvitashvili won the second match against junior Xue Jhang. Those first two wins were followed by four straight singles wins for the Demon Deacons, which lifted them over the Rams.
Chala fell 6-2 in the first round of her match against Guerin. She took the next two rounds 7-6 and 7-4. After a 1-0 and 10-6 win, Chala took the first match. In the second singles match, Kvitashvili won the first match over Jhang 6-3, Jhang won round two 6-4. While Kvitashvili’s 1-0 and 10-8 wins allowed her to take the match. The Demon Deacons swept all of the next matches.
Wake Forest’s redshirt sophomore Samantha Asch won two straight matches over VCU’s junior Olga Barscheuskaya 6-3 and then 6-1. Sophomore Luisa Fernandez won the next sweep for the Demon Deacons 7-5 and 6-4 over VCU’s freshman Darya Berezhnaya. Freshman Ana Batiri was the next Ram to fall 6-1 and 7-5 to Wake Forest’s junior Kasey Gardiner. Lastly, senior Karen Forman won the final match 6-2 and 6-1 over VCU freshman Alzbeta Veverkova.
The Demon Deacons also topped the Rams in the doubles matches. In the first of the three matchups, Gardiner and Fernandez won 6-4 over Barscheuskaya and Kvitashvili, giving Wake Forest the first doubles victory. The second match wasn’t finished, and ended with a 4-4 tie between Guerin and Asch for Wake Forest and Chala and Berezhnaya for VCU. Wake Forest won the third match, Forman and Zhang defeated Batiri and Veverkova 6-3.
Overall, the loss to Wake Forest was the team’s second of the season. With their impressive home record, the Rams are still four games above .500 with a 6-2 record. Up next will be four opportunities for the women’s tennis team to get their first road win of the season before returning home on March 6 to face off against North Carolina State University.
