Tennis: Panthers play to mixed results

Pitt’s tennis team has had a tumultuous past two weeks. The young team bounced from victory to… Pitt’s tennis team has had a tumultuous past two weeks. The young team bounced from victory to defeat as it took on local and elite Big East teams.

Although the Panthers dominated over Youngstown State and Carnegie Mellon, they faltered against Rutgers and Syracuse, making the past two weeks’ play seem inconsistent.

But for head coach George Dieffenbach, the mixed results and tough losses are simply because of the teams on Pitt’s recent schedule.

“It’s not inconsistent play, we have a top-flight schedule that is upgraded each year,” Dieffenbach said. “We play a lot of very talented teams, and a lot of Big East matches which is one of the strongest conferences.  We have been working hard in practice and we have two tough matches left.”

Pitt started off the week with an impressive 6-1 win over Youngstown State on Wednesday. In doubles play, senior Elizabeth Adams and sophomore Gabrielle Catanzariti won a close match at first doubles, 8-6.

Second doubles was not so close — the Pitt freshman tandem of Jocelyn Lu and Kimmy Borza ran away with an 8-3 victory. Third doubles came down to the last point, as junior Minh Evans and freshman Taylor Washington dropped a tough match, 7-9.

The Panthers’ singles play also ran roughshod over the Penguins. Except for a loss by Adams at first singles, Pitt didn’t drop a match in the category — each of the other five matches ended in triumph for Pitt players. Catanzariti, Lu and sophomore Karma Parbhu all won their matches with little or no contest.

Borza ran into some resistance at fourth singles and had to play an extra game to take the first set, 7-5. She then gained another hard-fought set with a score of 6-4. The victory in straight sets was her sixth consecutive in that category.

At sixth singles, freshman Brittney Russell won decisively in the first set, 6-1. Her opponent almost managed to take the second set, but Russell was able to hold her off to take a 6-4 victory and end a successful day for the team, which saw Pitt pull its overall record to 7-8.

After back-to-back losses before the win against Youngstown State, the victory gave the Panthers some momentum before their Saturday match against Big East powerhouse Rutgers.

“The win gave us confidence,” Lu said. “We hadn’t been playing as well as we wanted, so we really wanted to get a solid win before we played Rutgers.”

As dominant as the Panthers were against Youngstown State, Rutgers turned the tables on Pitt, and the Scarlet Knights won by a score of 6-1 at a neutral site in Morgantown, W.Va.

No Pitt doubles team managed to pick up a victory, and Rutgers won the toughly-contested doubles point. Each Panthers doubles team pushed its opponent, but none could get over the hump in the end to pick up a victory. Adams and Catanzariti at first doubles and Evans and Washington at third doubles both lost their matches 4-8. At second doubles, Lu and Borza came the closest to victory, but they ultimately dropped the match to their opponents, 5-8.

In singles, the Panthers were less close to victory. Four of the six singles matches were lost in straight sets, and most were decided by a large margin. The closest any of the four came to winning a set was Evans’ 4-6 sixth singles loss. She then lost her second set 1-6.

Two bright spots in singles play came in the form of two freshmen who have been two of the most successful players on the team this season. Lu, at second singles, won her match in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3. Borza, at third singles, put up a valiant effort, but ultimately lost in three sets.

After dropping the first set 3-6, Borza came back to force a third frame by winning the second 6-4. She was unable to finish the comeback, however, as her opponent held her comeback and put the match away in Rutgers’ favor. Borza lost 4-6 in the decisive set.

“We went into the match thinking we could win. We all knew we had a chance to win,” Borza said. “There were a lot of close matches, some you couldn’t really see on the score sheet, and doubles really could have gone either way.”

Yet after the deflating loss, the Panthers returned to action Wednesday with a 6-3 win over Carnegie Mellon, in large part because of a dominant performance in doubles play. Each doubles team won, and three more wins in singles play by Lu, Borza and Evans capped off the victory and helped restore the team’s confidence.

“This win was very important for us, because Coach George [Dieffenbach] wanted us to get a close win,” Lu said. “All of our matches have been either us blowing the opponent out or getting beaten pretty badly ourselves.”

Next on the slate was a match against Syracuse. It was a contest the team had been looking forward to all year as the Orange are one of the best teams in the Big East, and they were prepared heading into the match last Friday.

“This is the match I’ve been looking forward to the most all year. Syracuse has a great program,” Borza said. “We have nothing to lose though, and we are going to go out and attack and leave nothing on the court.”

Unfortunately for the Panthers, any momentum the Panthers may have earned by defeating Carnegie Mellon didn’t carry over into the match against Syracuse. The Orange shut the Panthers out 7-0, casting a pall over the Senior Night celebration for Adams, Adela Aprodu and Sarah Dieffenbach during the team’s last home game of the season.

The loss leaves Pitt 8-10 on the season, with two very tough matches remaining. With its current record, the team is in serious danger of finishing under .500 for the first time in six years — the 2004-05 squad finished 9-11. More importantly, if the squad cannot win its final two matches, Pitt might not qualify for the Big East tournament.

The two remaining matches are a Wednesday contest against Big East opponent Georgetown and a final test against Marshall on Friday that could land the Panthers in the postseason.

“We are going to give it all we got, and if we go out and compete hard and pull out a victory, we stand a great chance to qualify for the Big East tournament,” Dieffenbach said. “It’s going to be about the battle, the intensity, giving it our best, and putting matches away.”