Matt Hawley | Staff Photographer
The struggling Pitt tennis team, which hasn’t won a team match since March 11, went into this weekend completely winless in the ACC.
That didn’t change over Easter weekend as the Panthers (3-14, 0-13 ACC) lost at home Friday against the No. 40 Virginia Cavaliers and Sunday to the No. 45 Miami Hurricanes in Coral Gables, Florida.
The Panthers began their final home dual of the season on a positive note by clinching the doubles point against the Cavaliers.
Redshirt senior Amber Washington and junior Callie Frey earned a 6-3 victory over Rosie Johanson and Meghan Kelley in the No. 1 spot. After senior Audrey Ann Blakely and sophomore Clara Lucas dropped their match 6-5, the No. 3 team of sophomore Gabriela Rezende and first-year Jovana Knezevic picked up a 6-4 win to give the Panthers an early 1-0 lead.
Despite the hopeful start, the Cavaliers dominated the Panthers for the rest of the afternoon, giving up just one match en route to a 5-2 victory.
The Panthers’ sole singles win of the day belonged to Frey, who took down Virginia junior Teodora Radosavljevic in the No. 4 match.
Radosavljevic put up a strong fight against Frey and forced a tiebreak in both sets. However, Frey closed Radosavljevic out in each of the tiebreaks to win the match in straight sets.
The Cavaliers didn’t drop any other sets on the afternoon as Washington, Blakely, Rezende, Lucas and sophomore Natsumi Okamoto all fell easily to their Wahoo opponents.
The team next took on Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, but the Hurricanes dominated the Panthers on Easter Sunday, dropping zero sets on the way to a 7-0 shutout over Pitt.
“We had some amazing points, but we have to continue getting better at playing complete matches,” head coach Alex Santos said after the shutout.
Rezende put up the biggest fight Sunday morning and forced a tiebreak in the first set of her match against Miami first-year Dominika Paterova. But Paterova downed Rezende 7-5 to take the first set and put the Panther away in the second, 6-3.
Washington, Blakely, Lucas, Frey and Okamoto each proved no match for the Hurricanes, as all five Panthers dropped their matches in straight sets.
The Panthers’ regular season comes to an end April 22, as Pitt travels to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels. Pitt will then travel to Rome, Georgia, to participate in the ACC Championship from April 26 to 29.
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