Women's Tennis Breezes Through 18th-ranked Michigan, 6-1
Feb. 26, 2009
Box Score [html] | Box Score in PDF Format 
Coral Gables, Fla. – After dropping the doubles point, the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes (10-2) swept all six singles matches en route to a decisive 6-1 victory over the visiting No. 18 Michigan Wolverines (5-3) in women’s tennis action Thursday at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center in Coral Gables, Fla.
Michigan led 1-0 heading into the singles matches on the strength of two doubles position wins, including a barn-burner at the third slot.
The Wolverines’ 21st-ranked doubles pair of Tania Mahtani and Chisako Sugiyama fought back from a 3-1 deficit to collect the 8-4 victory over Miami’s Julia Cohen and Laura Vallverdu at the No. 1 position. Miami answered with a win at two doubles as the team of Michaela Kissell and Gabriela Mejia fought past Whitney Taney and Rika Tatsuno, 8-6.
The final doubles point (No. 3) captivated the entire crowd as the Hurricanes’ Bianca Eichkorn and Claudia Wasilewski battled back from an early 6-2 deficit to knot the match against Michigan’s Lindsey Howard and Denise Morgan, 7-7. Wasilewski and Eichkorn broke the Wolverines’ serve to deadlock the match. Michigan answered with a sweep of the next point (Love-Game) to go back up, 8-7. The Wolverines took advantage of two high lob shots left up by the Hurricanes to collect the final two points en route to the game win. UM countered with a Game-15 break-serve of their own, setting the match even at 8-8.
In the tie-break, Miami went up 6-5 after trading leads and ties the whole way. With the Orange and Green serving for match-point following a Wolverines’ double-fault, they were turned away by Howard’s drop shot that just cleared the net for the 6-6 tie. Michigan collected the final two points to earn the 8-6 tie-break, winning the match, 9-8.
“Losing the doubles point is getting old,” admitted Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews. “Our goal is to get that doubles point and really put the pressure on our opponents to try and beat us four-out-of-six in singles. And with the team we have, and the way we’re playing, I think that’s going to be tough for a lot of people … if we continue to play like we are in singles.”
In singles play, the `Canes got back to business and swept all six positions.
After falling behind 2-0 in the opening set, the Hurricanes’ Julia Cohen (No. 20) picked things up and started rolling against Michigan’s Chisako Sugiyama (No. 56) at the first singles position. Cohen won five straight games before surrendering a 5-3 score, finally closing out Sugiyama in the opening set, 6-3.
Cohen then wasted little time in the second set, closing out Sugiyama, 6-0. With the win, Cohen improved to 15-4 on the season.
“Julia’s so talented that she wants to get a feel for her opponent at first, and get a feel for the tone of the match before she makes her move,” expressed Yaroshuk-Tews. “Obviously, I’d like to get her started a little quicker, but she just starts doing the little things and making the right plays to get herself back into it every time. She’s not the type of player to get really frustrated or down on herself for falling behind early-on.”
Miami would move in front for good in the match on the strength of Michaela Kissell’s (No. 60) straight-set win at the fourth position on a 6-4, 6-0 line against Michigan’s Tania Mahtani. Kissell trailed 4-3 in the first set before winning the final three games to collect the 6-4 opener.
Kissell upped her record for the year to 21-6 while going 9-1 in her last 10 matches.
Freshman Gabriela Mejia, praised lately for her hard play by Yaroshuk-Tews, collected a 6-0, 7-5 straight-set winner over Denise Muresan at the No. 5 position as the Cali, Valle (Colombia) native stretched her winning streak to four matches. Mejia is now on the up-side of the wins column for the season with a 10-9 overall mark.
Two-time Miami All-American Laura Vallverdu (No. 34) followed to clinch the match for the Orange and Green with an exciting 7-5, 6-2 win at the second spot over Michigan’s Rika Tatsuno (No. 73). After Vallverdu collected the opening game, Tatsuno battled to take a slim 3-2 advantage, only to have Vallverdu come back to take a 4-3 edge. With the set going back and forth, Vallverdu finally used a costly double-fault from Tatsuno, followed by two dominant slams on lobs left high from Tatsuno, to close it out.
Vallverdu (12-5) would immediately go to work in the second set, but Tatsuno had plenty of fight, knotting the score at 2-2. Miami would be too dominant in the end as Vallverdu collected the final four games for the win.
Shaking up the lineup today, Yaroshuk-Tews decided to go with Bianca Eichkorn (No. 51) at the No. 3 position. Eichkorn responded in kind with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-1 win over Michigan’s Whitney Taney (No. 109). For Eichkorn, she stretched her winning streak to five consecutive matches, while also upping her record for the year to 25-5.
“Yeah, we switched Michaela and Bianca today, but I told them at the beginning of the year `if they worked hard and showed hard work, then they’d both get some time at No. 3 [singles]’, and we felt Bianca earned that chance today,” commented Yaroshuk-Tews.”
The final win for the Hurricanes was at the No. 6 spot as Claudia Wasilewski (13-7) collected a come-from-behind three-set thriller over Lindsey Howard of the Wolverines on scores of 4-6, 6-3, 10-4. Wasilewski trailed 2-1 in the tie-break before coming back for a 6-2 advantage, finally earning the win at 10-4.
“Overall, it was another good win for us against another ranked opponent, and I thought the girls showed a lot of heart out there today,” stated Yaroshuk-Tews. “We are going to take a few days off to get away from the court, and then get back to it on Monday. I think the time away will help all of us right now after a tough stretch of matches the last few weeks.”
Miami returns home next Thursday, Mar. 5 as they host ACC opponent Boston College back at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center at 10 a.m.
For more information on University of Miami Women’s Tennis, please log on to www.hurricanesports.com. After browsing to the women’s tennis home page, you will find the latest news, stats and match notes pertaining to the Hurricanes Women’s Tennis program.
