The Notre Dame men’s and women’s tennis teams finished up their conference seasons in Cary, North Carolina, at the ACC Championships. The eighth-seeded Irish men fell 4-1 to ninth-seeded Clemson in the opening round, while the seventh-seeded women’s team defeated Syracuse (4-1) before taking a quarterfinal loss to No. 2 Virginia (4-0). As a result, the men’s team ended its year at 13-14 overall, and the women’s team moved to 17-9.
Irish men come out on wrong end of competitive match
Clemson and Notre Dame didn’t just appear as close competitors in the conference seeding. The two teams entered the weekend ranking within seven spots of one another in the ITA’s national team rankings.
To no surprise, they produced a match that could have swung either way on Thursday. But 54th-ranked Clemson got the better of 47th-ranked Notre Dame, winning 4-1 to reach the quarterfinals.
Doubles play opened the day with a handful of tight contests — all decided by three games or less. Clemson pulled off an upset to take the upper hand in No. 1 doubles, as the 55th-ranked duo of Noa Vukadin and Max Smith handed a 6-3 loss to the eighth-ranked Irish combination of sophomore Sebastian Dominko and senior Jean-Marc Malkowski.
Notre Dame then pulled back even with a 6-4 win in No. 2 doubles from graduate student Nil Girladez and freshman Chase Thompson. But the Tigers, in a No. 3 match that went long, ripped away the doubles point with a 7-5 victory from Marko Mesarovic and Matt Pitts.
Singles play proved even tighter, with only one of the six matches going final in two sets. That match, a 7-5, 6-2 win for Clemson’s 102-ranked Wissam Abderrahman in No. 2 doubles, extended the Tiger lead to 2-0.
After that, every match the rest of the way — even those that went unfinished — required a full three sets. In No. 1 singles, Dominko bounced back from his doubles loss by topping Ryuhei Azuma (6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (8-6)) in a match between top-100-ranked singles players.
However, with the score at 2-1 Clemson, that was the last Notre Dame would see of victory. Stewart Aronson came from behind (2-6, 6-4, 6-4) against freshman Kyran Magimay in No. 5 singles, setting up Vudakin to clinch against Thompson (6-4, 3-6, 6-3) in the No. 3 match.
With its team season over, Notre Dame men’s tennis now looks ahead to the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships, scheduled for May 20-26.
Irish depth delivers in women’s win over Syracuse
While the Irish men’s team couldn’t snap its five-year drought without an ACC Tournament win, the women’s squad got the job done on Thursday. Notre Dame, ranked 28th in the nation as a team, handled 56th-ranked Syracuse by a 4-1 count to reach the quarterfinal round.
Once again, Notre Dame’s opposition started the day by claiming a ranked doubles match. The 40th-ranked Orange pair of Miyuka Kimoto and Viktoriya Kanapatskaya knocked off the 42-ranked Irish group of senior Julia Andreach and graduate student Page Freeman by a 6-2 score.
But Notre Dame, with its back against the wall right away, battled back. Junior Carrie Beckman and sophomore Akari Matsuno won 6-4 in No. 2 doubles, setting up a decisive No. 3 match that also went the Irish way. Senior Yashna Yellayi and junior Nibi Ghosh earned a close victory of 7-6 (6-4), handing Notre Dame the opening doubles point.
The Irish took that point and ran with it in singles play, giving Syracuse no chance to mount a comeback. Sophomore Bojana Pozder made quick work of her No. 3 singles match (6-1, 6-2), while Matsuno did the same in No. 6 singles (6-4, 6-3). Andreach then stormed back from a heartbreaker in set one to drop Kimoto by a score of 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 6-0 in No. 1 singles.
While that match went final, Syracuse picked up its lone point with a win from Polina Kozyreva in No. 5 singles. But it made no difference. Notre Dame was on its way to the next round with a 4-1 victory.
In that next round, the ACC quarterfinals, the Irish ran into much stiffer competition in the form of a Virginia team ranked fourth nationally. The Cavaliers had their way with Notre Dame in doubles play, handing Andreach and Freeman a 6-2 loss with their eight-ranked pairing of Melodie Collard and Elaine Chervinsky. The same score decided a No. 3 doubles match in which Sara Ziodata and Meggie Navarro of Virginia downed Yellayi and Ghosh.
Similarly, Virginia purely outmatched Notre Dame in singles play. The Cavaliers brought four ranked singles players to the fold, vastly overshadowing Notre Dame’s lone ranked player, Andreach. Though she held her own in an unfinished matchup against 61st-ranked Annabelle Xu, three other matches quickly went final in Virginia’s favor.
The Cavaliers earned two-set victories in both No. 5 and No. 3 singles, building their lead to 3-0. In the former match, the 99th-ranked Chervinsky dominated Yellayi (6-2, 6-1). In the latter contest, Natasha Subhash triumphed over Pozder (6-0, 6-2).
Virginia couldn’t claim its fourth and final point as easily, though. Ghosh claimed her first game against the 86th-ranked Ziodato in No. 4 singles, giving the Irish a chance to stay alive. But Ziodato rapidly dismissed that possibility, sending Ghosh and Notre Dame packing with set wins of 6-0 and 6-1.
The Irish women now look ahead to the NCAA Regionals on May 3, followed by the NCAA Team Championships on May 11 and the NCAA Individual Championships on May 20.
