Still without their full roster, the Notre Dame women’s tennis team split their weekend in Virginia, beating the Virginia Tech Hokies 4-1, before falling to the No. 14 Virginia Cavaliers, 6-1.
The Irish (8-6, 3-4 ACC) opened the day with the doubles sets. Senior-freshman duo Cameron Corse and Julia Andreach won the first of the doubles sets. They defeated Virginia Tech’s Elizabet Danailova and Nika Kozar 6-2. Freshman Yashna Yellayi and junior Julia Lilien followed that up by defeating the Hokies’ Katie Andreini and Erika Cheng, 6-3. Although junior Maeve Koscielski and senior Ally Bojczuk fell 3-6 in the No. 2 set, the Irish came away with the doubles point.
In the singles matches, Bojczuk came back with a straight-set win for the Irish (6-0, 7-5) over Nika Kozar. Bojczuk put the first singles point on the board. This was answered by Virginia Tech’s Nina Sorkin’s straight-set win (6-4, 6-3) over Notre Dame’s Lilien. Then, No. 1 doubles pair Corse and Andreach both won their singles matches — 7-5, 7-5 and 6-3, 7-5 respectively — to bring the Irish to the four points they needed to win the match.
The next day, the Irish had a tougher slate. Irish leading duo, Corse and Andreach, fell to Virginia’s Emma Navarro and Rosie Johanson. These two doubles losses led the Irish to open the day down a point.
Navarro, the No. 80 singles player in the country, then took down No. 109 Corse in straight sets (6-1, 6-1). After three more losses for Lilien, Koscielski and Bojczuk, Yellayi got the Irish on the board. She lost her first set 1-6, but won the next two 6-1 and 6-2 over Amber O’Dell. The Irish ultimately fell to the Cavaliers, who closed the match with one more singles win, this time over Andreach.
Notre Dame will take the court again next weekend against Wake Forest and NC State at home.
