Canes Tennis Get Much-Needed Wins over the Weekend

After some disappointing results two weeks ago, the Miami Hurricanes Men’s and Women’s tennis teams both scored wins over the weekend to get their seasons back on track. The Men’s team was able to fight off the North Florida Ospreys while the women’s team scored two solid wins against the Maryland Terrapins and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Coming into the season, the Men’s team seemingly had an advantageous schedule with eight of the first nine dual matches at home. With only one team in the schedule ranked above them, there was good reason to hope that they would get through the first nine games with no more than one loss. After losing to Central Florida for the first time ever in 16 matches, the Canes men dropped a tough match to No. 54 Texas Tech and then were upset by unranked South Florida to fall to a 3-3 record. With junior Wilfredo Gonzalez out for an unspecified reason, the Canes have had to juggle their doubles teams and move the singles lineup around as well to find the singles match ups needed to win.

On Saturday, the Canes hosted unranked the North Florida Ospreys (3-5) at The Schiff. The Osprey defeated the Canes last year and though they are unranked this year, this team has been improving over the last few years and they definitely have the ability to come away with another win over the Canes. And sure enough after three closely fought matches, the Canes dropped the crucial doubles point. The Canes now had to win four of the six singles matches to avoid a three-match losing streak. The Ospreys moved their singles lineup around a bit too liberally in an effort to find the three singles wins they needed, but the Canes took them head on. The score went back and forth the entire afternoon but with the Canes finally grabbing a 3-2 lead, junior Henrique Tsukamoto sealed the dual match victory with a straight-sets win at the No. 6 singles position. The No. 62 Canes (4-3) will now play a rare double-header against Presbyterian and Xavier on March 4 before the ACC season begins.

Meanwhile the women were also looking to bounce back after a disappointing ITA Indoors finish. The Canes had fallen from No. 9 to No. 17 in the team rankings so two wins were a must to stop the slide and to get the season back on track. Unranked Maryland came into town on Friday and the Canes had absolutely no problem with the Terrapins. They scored a solid 7-0 win without dropping a single set in their last match with Maryland as a conference foe. The Terrapins will move over to the Big Ten after this season.

The stiffer test came on Sunday when the Canes hosted Notre Dame. The No. 22 Fighting Irish (5-3) were looking for their first ACC win after joining the conference this season. However, the Canes started off by taking all three doubles matches and they never looked back. Other than dropping the No. 4 singles, the other five singles matches were all straight set victories. Even Coach Yaroshuk-Tews was impressed and had nothing but praise in her comments on her team’s performance. The Canes (5-2) will next host Boston College at The Schiff as they begin their rise back up the rankings.

Next scheduled matches:

No. 62 men’s team (4-3) at home vs. Presbyterian and Xavier on March 4^th, Tuesday.

No. 17 women’s team (5-2) at home vs. Boston College on February 28^th, Friday