ROME, Ga. – The University of Miami women’s tennis team started ACC Championship competition with a stellar showing Thursday afternoon against No. 10-seeded Notre Dame, rolling to a 4-1 victory.
The seventh-seeded Hurricanes, ranked No. 24/20 nationally, used a pair of dominant doubles victories and a trio of straight-set singles triumphs at the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College to advance to the quarterfinals.
“I was pretty happy with the way we came out and handled the situation [while] having four kids here for the first time playing in the conference tournament,” Miami head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews said. “They were very loose, they were smiling and they were ready to play. As a coach, you’re happy to see that from a team heading into their first match of postseason play.”
Notre Dame (11-13, 4-9 ACC) jumped out to a strong start in doubles behind a 6-1 victory in a top-25 showdown, as No. 22 Cameron Corse and Page Freeman took six games in a row against Miami’s No. 25-ranked duo of fifth-year senior Estela Perez-Somarriba and freshman Isabella Pfennig.
The Hurricanes then quickly leveled the doubles tally with a win on Court 2 in the other top-25 matchup. Second-year freshmen Diana Khodan and Maya Tahan, ranked No. 24, defeated No. 10 Ally Bojczuk and Julia Lilien, 6-2, for their second top-10 triumph of the spring.
“I was pretty impressed with number two doubles today,” Yaroshuk-Tews said. “I thought they played really well, really smart. [They were] volleying well and very aggressive.”
In the decisive match, third-year sophomore Daevenia Achong and second-year freshman Florencia Urrutia sealed the opening point for Miami (13-7, 8-5 ACC) by topping Julia Andreach and Yashna Yellayi, 6-2.
Once singles play began, it did not take long for Khodan to tack on another point for the Hurricanes, she picked up a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Yellayi in her first-career ACC Championship appearance.
Urrutia, also in her first conference tournament singles match, upped the lead to 3-0 by defeating Lilien, 6-4, 6-2.
Notre Dame, ranked No. 50 in the ITA Coaches Poll, got its lone point of the day with a 6-4, 6-4 victory from Andreach over Tahan, yet another Hurricane in the event for the first time.
Moments after the Fighting Irish got on the board, fourth-ranked Perez-Somarriba squashed any hopes of a comeback by clinching the victory. For the 158th win of her illustrious career, the Madrid native downed Corse, 6-4, 6-2.