Following the Canes Men’s Baseball taking a major L last night against Clemson in the ACC Tournament, another sports team repping the U has ended their journey to bringing an NCAA Championship trophy back to Coral Gables. Yesterday, Canes tennis player Estela Perez-Somarriba had a lot of pressure going in as the only player on the women's team to make it to the NCAA Singles Sweet Sixteen. She was ranked 3rd in the country and 3rd overall in the tournament, according to the official Hurricanes athletic website. Unfortunately, she lost to 13 seed FIU's Andrea Lazaro 1-2, managing to make an impressive comeback before unfortunately losing to Lazaro in the third set. Rankings and record aside, Lazaro just wanted it more.
A remarkable season comes to an end in the NCAA Sweet 16 for the @ACCTennis Player of the Year and @ITA_Tennis National Player to Watch.
— Canes Women's Tennis (@CanesWTennis) May 25, 2018
Third-ranked Estela Perez-Somarriba concludes her sophomore season at 39-8, including 20-5 against ranked foes and 28-3 in the spring. pic.twitter.com/wnn0tx2ImB
Why does a tennis story matter among all of the Miami U sports stories we get? Because Estela Perez-Somarriba's success on the court ironically matches the U's success on the football and baseball field as of lately, though for some reason all three sports fall apart in the postseason. Stela was ACC Player of the Year and ended her sophomore season with an impressive record of 39-8. This includes winning 20 out of 25 games against ranked opponents and having a staggering 28-3 record in the spring alone. This appearance also marked her second trip to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA tournament, which she won by a straight-set victory. This means that she completely swept her match to make it closer to the ship. Though this loss stings a bit more after the Canes' Baseball team loss, the positive from this is that Perez-Somarriba has another two years at the U, so we'll be seeing her make it this far again hopefully.