W. Tennis 2018 Season Synopsis
By Alex Schwartz
HurricaneSports.com
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Another stellar season is in the books for the University of Miami women’s tennis team.
Although sophomore Estela Perez-Somarriba still has action on the docket with the NCAA Singles Championship, the team portion of the campaign ended Thursday in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The Hurricanes fell to top-seeded Vanderbilt, now in the Final Four for the fourth straight year, in the NCAA Team Championship Sweet 16 at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex.
Although 17th-year head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews has made Sweet 16 appearances commonplace—Miami is one of three programs to make 12 such trips in the past 13 years—this team’s journey to the third round was anything but easy.
“Obviously, it’s a disappointing day, but the fact that we were here and playing in this moment with these kids [is great],” Yaroshuk-Tews said after the season’s final match. “Honestly, of all the teams that I have ever taken to [the Sweet 16 of] this tournament, this is one that I’ll remember because these kids went through a lot and they didn’t say a lot. They just got to work and just started finding results; sometimes, I don’t even know how we did so. We just kept moving week to week and they busted their tails to be here. So, at the end of the day, I think it was a great season.”
After a nice beginning to 2018 at the Miami Fall Invite, the Hurricanes got off to a slow in dual match action. By the time the third week of February rolled around, Miami was under .500, unranked, had zero ranked victories and missed out on the ITA National Team Indoor Championship for just the second time in 14 years.
Youth, inexperience and injury were big factors in the Hurricanes’ sluggish opening. In all but five of the team’s 27 outings—including one suspended match that did not officially count—Miami used the same six players. One was a freshman, two were sophomores and one was a junior in her first year at The U who had only nine dual match singles results in 2017.
With a month under their belts, the Hurricanes began to cruise. Miami rattled off six consecutive victories, three of them via shutout, to move to 8-3. The stretch included a neutral-site win over then-No. 16 Florida State and was capped by a road triumph a then-sixth-ranked Georgia Tech, teams that would go on to reach the Elite Eight and Final Four, respectively.
Miami also showed resolve during that span, notching the first of four wins on the season when losing the doubles point, doing so in a 4-3 triumph at then-No. 31 Clemson.
Adversity quickly hit the Hurricanes again, as they dropped three of their next four matches, albeit all to top-25 opponents, including two on the road and two to top-five foes.
Sitting at 9-6 in the final week of March, Miami needed to once again get hot and it certainly did. The Hurricanes ended the month with a thrilling win at then-No. 19 Wake Forest, rallying from a 3-0 deficit for a 4-3 victory for the first time in program history under this scoring format (since 2001).
Instead of falling in a third consecutive match, the Hurricanes opened a seven-match winning streak that included a 7-0 shutout of then-No. 25 Syracuse. Miami dropped two points in a match just once during the stretch and ascended to a season-best No. 15 nationally.
The streak came to an end in the ACC Championship semifinals, the team’s 10th berth in 14 years in the league, against then-fourth-ranked Duke, now in the Final Four.
However, Miami did just enough to earn a host spot in the NCAA Team Championship for the 13th time in 14 years. After a shutout win over LIU Brooklyn to reach the Round of 32 for the 17th straight year, the Hurricanes took on No. 22 UCF in one of the most exciting matches of the year.
Miami dropped the doubles point at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center, posted back-to-back singles wins to go in front and then quickly fell behind, 3-2.
Senior Sinead Lohan became the fourth Hurricane with 130 singles wins and tied the match in the process. Then, sophomore Dominika Paterova logged the biggest win of her career to send Miami to the Sweet 16 for the 23rd time in program history.
Although the season ended with a defeat against the Commodores, it was an impressive display of effort and hard work for the Hurricanes to reach the Sweet 16 playing with just six individuals nearly all year.
“Of course, we’re not happy with today’s outcome, but I think getting here and coming this far, for this group of girls, was huge,” Yaroshuk-Tews said after the match. “I’m so proud of them, their fight, how they stuck together and how they represented this program. I’d take these six girls [who played nearly every match] any day of the week. They got so much better this season. If we would’ve had this discussion in January with these six kids, I don’t think anybody would’ve said we would be at the final 16.”
Along the way, Perez-Somarriba ascended to third in the national rankings and won ACC Player of the Year, while Lohan became Miami’s third four-time All-ACC honoree. Perez-Somarriba also garnered four ACC Player of the Week awards and Ulyana Shirokova earned three ACC Freshman of the Week designations.
Additionally, all six lineup mainstays (Lohan, Paterova, Perez-Somarriba, Shirokova, junior Ana Madcur and junior Daniella Roldan) were ranked in singles and/or doubles during the year.
From 2-3 on Feb. 18 to 18-8 (11-3 ACC) with five top-25 wins and in line for a 16th consecutive top-25 finish in the ITA rankings, this season was truly one that displayed the incredible toughness Yaroshuk-Tews has instilled in this program during her incredible tenure.
While she continually recruits some of the top young players in the world, that toughness and fight are what continue to keep Miami among the nation’s elite college tennis programs.
That does not look to be changing any time soon, no matter what type of start the team may have. After all, it is about how you end a season, not how you begin it.
To keep up with the University of Miami women’s tennis team on social media, follow @CanesWTennis on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
