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Syracuse shifted the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament bracket on Sunday by upsetting Florida State 4-3 in its regular-season finale. Wake Forest, which beat Louisville on Sunday, jumped in front of the Seminoles in the standings due to the loss and took control of seventh place. As a result, SU will play Wake Forest in the first round on Thursday night. 

The Orange rank 10th in the ACC going into the conference tournament, which will be played in Rome, Georgia. Ranked No. 71 in the country, SU won’t have any easy matchups in a tournament featuring four top 10 teams as well as nine top 40 teams, according to the International Tennis Association. Head coach Younes Limam has said the ACC is the toughest conference in the country.

The Orange’s 4-9 record in the ACC was diminished by their 10-10 overall record. Over the past few seasons, SU has dominated nonconference play before faltering in ACC play. Syracuse enters the tournament this year without a ranked singles player in the top 125, and their best doubles duo ranks 40th, according to the ITA.

When Syracuse squared off with Wake Forest at the end of March, the Demon Deacons dominated the Orange 6-1. SU’s only victory came from Polina Kozyreva’s hard-fought comeback, ending in a 10-8 super tiebreaker win.

Limam said the team came out flat in doubles, which was decided in less than 30 minutes. The team forfeited a doubles and singles match but showed resilience late in singles play by sending three of its five matches to a tiebreaker set.

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“The end of the matches were a lot better than the beginning,” Limam said. “We came in with a little bit more energy, and I was proud of how we battled.”

It was late into the singles sets when Syracuse started to claw back into the match. The Orange’s ability to adjust midgame means they’ve had plenty of time to adjust their strategy in the past month. Limam will likely alter the lineup slightly as he’s done throughout the season, creating matchups he likes based on the skillsets Syracuse has already seen from Wake Forest.

WF is the No. 24 team in the country, according to ITA. The Deacons feature the No. 37 ranked singles player, senior Carolyn Campana, as well as the No. 8 doubles pairing in the country, senior Anna Brylin and sophomore Brooke Killingsworth. Brylin and Killingsworth made short work of Shiori Ito and Sofya Treshcheva in their first meeting, losing 6-1, but SU’s top singles player, Viktoriya Kanapatskaya, took Campana to a super tiebreaker after a 7-5 victory in the second set. Ultimately, fatigue got the better of Kanapatskaya, and she fell 10-6 in the tiebreaker. The two will likely play again in the No. 1 singles spot during Thursday’s first-round matchup.

If Syracuse were to win Thursday’s match, it would face No. 2 Duke on Friday night. The ninth-ranked Blue Devils earned a first round bye and feature the No. 9 singles player, junior Chloe Beck, and four top 90 doubles pairings. Syracuse was shut out 7-0 by Duke when the two faced on March 20 in Durham, North Carolina.

Besides Duke, three other top 10 teams will play in the tournament including No. 1 North Carolina, No. 3 NC State and No. 8 Virginia. UNC, Duke, Miami and UVA all earned first round byes.

At the end of the Orange’s last home match, a 4-3 victory over Boston College, Limam emphasized the importance of the team’s success in the final stretch to gather momentum before the tournament. SU won two of its final three ACC matches after only winning two of its first 10.

“We have high expectations,” Limam said about the tournament. “It won’t be easy, but I think these last couple regular season matches will be big for the girls’ confidence going in.”

Published on April 19, 2022 at 11:48 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu