Rams tennis teams experience polar outcomes
VCU men’s and women’s tennis teams went in the opposite directions in the win column last week, with the men dropping two straight and the women’s winning three in a row.
Peter Mason
Contributing Writer
VCU men’s and women’s tennis teams went in the opposite directions in the win column last week, with the men dropping two straight and the women’s winning three in a row.
VCU men’s tennis went through a difficult three game stretch, with matchups against Middle Tennessee University on April 4, the University of Memphis on April 5, and Virginia State University on April 10.
The Rams suffered three tough losses starting with a 4-1 loss to MTSU, with sophomore Wilder Pimentel being the only Ram to grab a win for VCU with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over MTSU’s Junior Dyma Zyhmantovich in the fifth singles round on April 4.
Senior Victor Hoang and redshirt senior Ben Davis, defeated VCU’s redshirt junior Joseph Cohen and sophomore Daryl Monfils 6-4 in the first doubles round and senior Ettore Zito with Zyhmantovich won 6-2 over VCU’s freshman Antonio Battle Rodriguez with junior Michal Voscek in a later doubles round. The wins for the Blue Raiders tallied to a 4-1 victory over the Rams.
The Rams on April 5 fell 4-3 to University of Memphis in their next match, dropping five straight doubles matches. Battle won the only singles match for the Rams with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 decision over freshman Shakeel Manji of the Tigers.
The Rams did take two of the three doubles matches with victories from sophomore Catalin Fifea and Pimentel, as well as Voscek and Battle Rodriguez, but it wasn’t enough and the Rams fell 4-3 to the Tigers.
On April 10 the Rams fell in a 7-0 shutout loss to Virginia Tech. VT junior Amerigo Contini and sophomore Jai won their doubles match 8-4 over VCU’s Fifea and Pimentel and juniors Joao Monteiro and Edoardo Tessaro defeated Voscek and Battle Rodriguez, 8-2. The Rams next dropped six straight singles matches for the 7-0 loss.
VCU’s overall record stands at 14-11; however, they do hold a 2-0 Atlantic 10 conference record.
While the men’s team suffered three straight losses, women’s tennis had a successful week with two straight victories on the weekend of April 4-5, against the University of Richmond and George Washington University. Both victories were shutouts.
All of the Rams grabbed wins over Richmond with doubles victories from seniors Cindy Chala with Salome Kvitashvili and sophomore Ludivine Burguiere with junior Olga Barshcheuskaya. The Rams claimed six straight single wins to claim the 4-0 victory.
Sunday’s match at home against George Washington was the same. No Colonial was able to grab a win against any of the Rams and VCU won another shutout victory 5-0. The closest any of them were able to come was the double’s match that Burguiere and Barshcheuskaya played against GW’s freshmen Teodora Radosavljevic and sophomore Grace Egger, in which the Rams pulled through 8-7.
The results tallied up to a 5-0 win for VCU and marked a threegame winning streak for women’s tennis who currently holds a record of 12-8 with a 1-0 record in the A-10.
