Slow start puts team in tough hole

Nothing comes easy anymore for the Hoosiers. After last weekend’s effortless victories over Marquette and Morehead State, the No. 27 IU women’s tennis team lost 4-3 to No. 21 Tennessee, but beat Ball State 7-0. \nThe Tennessee Volunteers handily won the doubles matches, with the Hoosiers staying close at first before Tennessee pulled away to win two out of three singles matches. Tennessee’s Caitlin Whoriskey and Jennifer Meredith beat the Hoosier combination of junior Alba Berdala and freshman Katya Zapadalova 8-3, while the Lady Vols No. 26 pair Ghizela Schutte and Rosalia Alda beat IU junior Sigrid Fischer and sophomore Lindsey Stuckey, 8-2. \nTennessee’s Samantha Orlin and Connor Vogel retired, or conceded the match, while leading 6-5 during their match with IU senior captain Brianna Williams and freshman Myriam Sopel. The duo retired after the Lady Vols had already clinched the doubles point. \nVogel later retired again during her singles match with Williams, when she was leading 2-1, tying the two schools up at 1-1.\nWith IU up 3-2, all focus turned toward the last two players remaining, Stuckey and Berdala. Stuckey lost her first set and made a comeback in the second before losing to Alda 0-6, 7-6, 1-6. \nBerdala won her first set before Whoriskey won the second, forcing a third set tie-breaker that would ultimately lead to an IU defeat. Berdala lost 6-3, 2-6, 3-6. IU freshman Charlotte Martin easily won her match 6-2, 6-1, and junior Sigrid Fischer came back after her first set to win 7-6, 6-2. \nIU coach Lin Loring said he was happy with how the Hoosiers competed individually against Tennessee, but disappointed in their doubles play.\n“We just started really slowly in doubles, and that really put us in a hole, just mentally,” Loring said. “The point turned out to be the deciding point. I was really pleased with how we played in singles. We put ourselves in the position to win, and you can’t really ask for anything more than that.”\nWilliams also said the team will remember how vital the doubles point is to the match’s final result.\n“We didn’t come out fully prepared for doubles,” Williams said. “I think losing doubles and being so close in singles really taught us how important the doubles point is. I hope we’ll learn from that.”\nJunior Stephanie Heller also said the team will remember this match for a long time to come.\n“I think it’ll teach us that each point in each match counts,” Heller said. “It’s our first really, really close match that went the other way.”\nThe Ball State match offered less of a challenge to the Hoosiers. Zapadalova and Berdala did not compete in doubles against Ball State. Fischer and Stuckey moved up to the first slot, winning 8-3. Williams and Sopel moved up to the second team and won 8-1. The rookie pair of Heller and Martin teamed up to win 8-1.\nHeaded into their road trip with a 7-2 record, the Hoosiers will travel to No. 20 Wake Forest and unranked UNC-Greensboro next Saturday. Both matches will be played in Winston-Salem, N.C.