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Syracuse (11-5, 4-5 Atlantic Coast) lost its fourth straight game to No. 1 ranked North Carolina on Sunday. It was also the fourth consecutive matchup the Orange lost by a 6-1 scoreline.

“I’m very proud of how we responded in the singles. We showed a lot of character, a lot of fight and refused to lose. They are number one for a reason,” head coach Younes Limam said of North Carolina.

Even before doubles started, the Tar Heels had an advantage. They had a lead handed to them due to Syracuse’s prior injuries.

The Tar Heels have seven players ranking inside the top 80 of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rankings, holding the No. 1, 14, 15, 18, 25, 68 and 80 spots. On the other hand, Zeynep Erman is Syracuse’s only top 100 ranked player.

UNC started the day with a 1-0 lead due to an injury from Syracuse’s Ines Fonte. The second half of the number one doubles pairing with Erman and the number six singles player on the roster, did not play on Sunday due an injury that forced her to retire on Friday. Since Syracuse has no substitutions on its roster, it had to forfeit a singles match and one of the doubles matches.

Fonte’s injury is apart of a larger problem with Syracuse’s lineup. Almost all of the Orange’s players are currently dealing with injuries or have been dealing with lingering injuries all season.

“It’s that time of the season. We’ve played a lot of matches and it adds up. The good news is that we have a few days to recover,” Limam said.

Four of the six players are currently dealing with injuries. Erman has been seen by the trainer for a back injury all season, and has forfeited two singles matches this spring. Shiori Ito suffered an ankle injury and was icing it after her matchup with 80th ranked singles player Elizabeth Scotty. And last weekend at Georgia Tech, Polina Kozyreva couldn’t continue and was forced to retire from her match after a bad fall moving left to right.

Miyuka Kimoto has also been dealing with an elbow injury for a majority of the season, and battled through multiple big falls and hits in her upset against 18th-ranked singles player Abbey Forbes.

“I’m super proud of her. We need that consistency all the time. Honestly that’s what makes the difference between good and great teams — they show up and they do that day in and day out,” Limam said.

Kimoto won the first set, narrowly defeating Forbes 7-5 in a tiebreaker. But Kimoto started to slow down, as she would slide and dive for shots consistently, but these would do more harm than good. After one fall into almost a full split, she got up limping back to the line for the next point. Her shot speed slowed, and she couldn’t get across the court in time as Forbes went on a big run and won the second set 7-5 to force a super tiebreaker.

Kimoto’s match was the last match of the day, so they played a super tiebreaker since the Tar Heels had already secured a victory. Kimoto would be involved in a shootout, as both sides quickly shot up the leaderboard until they were tied at eight apiece.

Rallying behind her teammates and coaches cheering her on, Kimoto would catch a second wind and win the next two points emphatically to win her match and prevent the number one team in the country from shutting out the Orange.

Published on March 26, 2023 at 7:02 pm