The Miami tennis team put an end to its three-game losing streak, defeating Bowling Green 7-0 at home on April 12. The RedHawks finished the match without a losing set throughout six single matches after securing a hard-fought doubles win to start the day.
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) match against the Falcons started with three doubles matches. Sarah Dev and Lauren Joyce quickly won their match 6-2 , while Nishitha Saravanan and Sara Zalukar initially struggled to find their footing on court one against Bowling Green’s Lucy Furness and Hannah Neumann.
The duo went down 0-3 to start the set but fought back to win 6-3, putting an end to BGSU’s effort on court two.
“We started down 0-3 really quickly,” Saravanan said. “But me and my partner were able to bounce back, just focusing on the present and not the past few losses. That just shows how strong and resilient our team is.”
Miami won all three doubles matches, taking an early 1-0 lead overall.
The single-play period saw similar domination from the RedHawks. Playing number one singles, Nishitha Saravanan defeated Lucy Furness 6-2. 6-4. Teammate Catherine Denysiewicz-Slowek defeated Hannah Neumann 6-1 and 6-0. Freshman Lovisa Valentinsson finished her match a few minutes later, winning both sets 6-0 and 6-2.
After just over an hour of competition, Saravanan and Dev secured their victories over Furness and Leticia Fonseca of the Falcons, respectively, to make it 5-0 for Miami.
The RedHawks came to Riverside Athletic Club in Hamilton, Ohio, with a 3-3 conference record and second on the MAC East Division standings, winning their first three games in a row but fell short against Toledo and Ball State. Meanwhile, the travelers haven’t won since March 17 and were 0-6 in MAC play before today’s match. Valentinsson defeated Brynn Chaffee to secure the sweep of the match for Miami with 6-0,6-2 score.
Head coach Ricardo Rosas said that the match was crucial for the team to gain back winning momentum after three consecutive losses.
“They wanna’ win,” he said. “That’s what I love about this group. It was about building our momentum back and getting wins and building on that.”
Miami kept the momentum moving forward with a 4-3 victory at home against the University of Buffalo on April 14.
