Last Friday, Notre Dame lost a conference match to Wake Forest 4-3 at Eck Tennis Pavilion.
In singles action, senior Quinn Gleason and sophomore Brooke Broda were the lone winners for the Irish (9-6, 3-3 ACC) on the day. On court No. 1, Gleason lost her first set 6-2 before bouncing back to win the last two sets 6-2 and 6-3. Broda lost her first set 6-1 before mounting a comeback of her own, taking the final two sets 7-5 and 6-3 on court No. 5. Juniors Monica Robinson, Allison Miller, Mary Closs and Jane Fennelly lost their matches in straight sets. In doubles action, Robinson and Gleason won their match 6-3 to the Wake Forest pairing of junior Kimmy Guerin and freshman Anna Ulyashchenko. In a hard-fought match, Broda and Miller tied their match 6-6 before winning the tiebreaker 7-3 to the Demon Deacon duo of junior Luisa Fernandez and senior Andrea Retolaza Andrade. Closs and senior Julie Vrabel dropped their match 6-2 against freshman Emma Davis and junior Samantha Asch of Wake Forest. Irish head coach Jay Louderback said the doubles wins by Robinson and Gleason and Broda and Miller could build his team’s confidence moving forward. “I thought our number one and number three doubles both had good wins and that should help our doubles in our matches this week,” Louderback said. Next, Notre Dame will hit the road and take on North Carolina State at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center in Raleigh, North Carolina on Thursday afternoon. After that, the Irish will travel to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina on Saturday morning at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center. Louderback said his team has to work hard to bounce back against two tough, competitive conference opponents. “We have to get back to practice this week and work toward our match with North Carolina State,” Louderback said. The Wolfpack (9-5, 2-3 ACC) are coming off of a 5-2 loss to No. 10 Virginia on Saturday, while the Tar Heels (17-2, 5-0 ACC) shut out Navy 7-0 last Tuesday. Louderback said this time of year presents a new challenge to his team. As the weather starts to get warmer, matches start to move from indoors to outdoors and Louderback said his team will have to adjust to the change of setting if it wants to be successful. “North Carolina and NC State have both been playing well and we will have to be ready to play outdoors,” Louderback said. “This is the time of year we have to adjust to moving in and outdoors daily.” Notre Dame is slated to begin their match against North Carolina State on Thursday at 5 p.m.
