Visram keeps winning, Panthers topple CMU

Sabrina Visram is accustomed to success.

At Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, Fla., Visram… Sabrina Visram is accustomed to success.

At Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, Fla., Visram won the district championship all four years that she attended the school. She was also the semi-state finals MVP each of those years, and was ranked 180th in the nation at one time.

Visram has now carried that success over to her fledgling career at Pitt.

The freshman added to the best start by any player in school history on Tuesday by winning her singles match, 6-1, 6-0, against Carnegie Mellon’s Andrea Maythaler. She improved to 10-0 on the season.

The victory was one of four singles triumphs for the Panthers, and they swept all three doubles matches to defeat the Tartans 7-2 and improve to 8-3.

The showdown opened with a closely played match between Pitt sophomore Kristy Borza and Carnegie Mellon’s Amy Staloch.

Borza forced extra games in the first set after falling behind 4-0. She took the set 7-6 and then cruised to a 6-1 second set.

A tiebreaker was necessary to determine the victor between Panthers’ Carlie Smith and the Tartans’ Mona Iyer.

Iyer prevailed after extra games in the first set, but Smith got revenge in the second with a 6-3 triumph.

The two played a close tiebreaker. Smith seemed to be in control, but the match stopped shortly for an injury she suffered during the action.

When Smith returned to the court, Iyer took advantage of Smith’s ailments to win 13-11.

Visram easily cruised to the victory in the No. 3 singles match, and senior Annie Davies won her match to give the Panthers a commanding 3-1 lead.

With the singles win and her subsequent triumph in her doubles match, Davies moved to 124 career victories, tying Fran Davis’ all-time career record for wins set in 1998.

In the No. 5 singles match, Pitt sophomore Christie D’achille lost a difficult three-set decision.

D’achille took the first set 7-5 but then lost consecutive sets, 6-4, 10-4.

In her first match of the spring, freshman Anna Broverman gave the Panthers some breathing room with her 6-0, 6-1 victory in the No. 6 singles match.

Despite suffering from tendinitis that kept her out of singles play, junior Leah Friedman teamed with Borza in the No. 1 doubles match.

The two players defeated Carnegie Mellon’s pairing of Iyer and Staloch 8-5 to clinch the win for the Panthers.

Davies teamed with D’achille to claim the second doubles match 8-2 over the Tartans team of freshmen Maythaler and Alisa Liebowitz.

The victory, Davies’ 62nd career doubles win, moved her to second on the Panthers’ all-time career doubles total.

Carlie Smith and Visram concluded the meet with an 8-2 victory of Carnegie Mellon’s Samantha Schultz and Mai Otsuka.

“It was a strong performance by the Pitt women,” head coach George Dieffenbach said. “We had great performances from all our players.”

With the loss, the Tartans, who are currently ranked 10th in the nation in Division III, fell to a 7-5 dual record.

The Panthers, meanwhile, will return to Big East competition on Saturday when they host the Villanova Wildcats.

“The team’s improving and we’re looking forward to playing Villanova on Saturday,” said Dieffenbach. “It’s going to be a very important match for us.”