Tennis: Borza coaching younger sister, Adams

Senior leadership and freshman contributions are the name of the game for this year’s Pitt… Senior leadership and freshman contributions are the name of the game for this year’s Pitt women’s tennis squad.

But the team is under some new leadership this season with assistant coach and all-time Pitt wins leader Kristy Borza joining the staff.

Borza will aid head coach George Dieffenbach in helping the team win. Ironically, she might help two current players, including her younger sister Kimmy, come close to eclipsing her record.

Throughout the initial seven matches of the season, senior Elizabeth Adams rose in the record books as one of the school’s premier all-time players.

Beginning the year with 122 victories in her first three seasons (combined singles and doubles), Adams needed 14 wins to move past former player Carlie Smith’s 135 career wins and into second place all-time.

To date, Adams has accumulated nine wins, giving her 131 total and landing her in third place among all women to play Pitt women’s tennis. Five more victories in the team’s 13 remaining regular season matches on the hard court would land her in second.

Coach Borza accumulated 91 singles wins along with 85 in doubles play from 2005-2009. With 176 wins, her Pitt record will serve as a benchmark for current players.

But her younger sister, a freshman this season, isn’t shying away from the challenge.

Kimmy has already established herself as a contributor to the team, playing a prominent role in just her first year. She already has seven wins on the season, four in singles and three in doubles play.

“My older sister Nikki was coach before Kristy, and I didn’t know Kristy was going to be named coach this year,” Kimmy Borza said. “But I am extremely close with both of my sisters, and they both know a lot about tennis, so it did help me choose to come to Pitt.”

With Adams leading the way and four freshman players already doing their part, the team hopes to gain consistency going forward.

Last Wednesday, the Panthers played rival WVU, losing by a count of 5-2. Adams and sophomore Gabrielle Catanzariti won their No. 1 doubles matchup, but the Mountaineers won the other.

In singles play, sophomore Karma Parbhu and Borza notched wins for Pitt, but WVU took the rest of singles play to gain the victory and drop the Panthers to 2-4.

“The loss to WVU was tough — we had a lot of close matches against them, and it could have gone either way,” Borza said.

But the Panthers bounced back and came home for their first match to be played at Alpha Tennis and Fitness, a new facility located across the river in Harmar, about 20 minutes from campus.

The opening match was played against St. Bonaventure, and Pitt opened its new home with pride. In dominant fashion, the Lady Panthers swept the Bonnies 7-0 to raise their record to 3-4 this season.

“It felt really good to bounce back against St. Bonaventure and get some confidence when we play Nova Southeastern in March, a team we lost to last year,” Borza said.

But Borza is only one of four freshmen to contribute this season. Her doubles partner, Jocelyn Lu, from Mission Viejo, Ca., has achieved 10 total victories, ranking her second on the team.

“I didn’t know that I was going to get to play so much,” Lu said. “I came to Pitt because I wanted to experience something new, and it’s been a fun year.”

With Borza, Lu, and others established, Dieffenbach has a core that will develop and hopefully produce a few players who will take their own places in the record books down the line.

“Our freshman class has been contributing a lot this year, and we are going to be really strong for Pitt tennis the next four years,” Lu said.