Temple University women’s tennis (1-1, 0-0 The American Athletic Conference) lost 5-2 against Virginia Commonwealth University (5-4, 1-0 The Atlantic 10) at Thalhimer Tennis Center in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday morning.
The Rams won every doubles match and four of six singles matches to close out the win. VCU is now 11-1 against the Owls in their 12 total meetings.
The Rams’ sophomore pairing of Luminita Tutunaru and Gabriela Davidescu took down Temple freshman Vineetha Mummadi and graduate student Oleksandra Doroshenko 6-1.
Rams senior Paola Diaz-Delgado and graduate student Noumea Witmus defeated the Owls’ junior duo of Stefaniya Surikova and Rine Nozaki 6-2 in straight sets.
To close out the doubles sweep, Rams freshman Alessia Ciuca and junior Shivani Manjanna won 6-3 against Temple’s freshman pairing of Ling Hsuan Wei and Sena Takebe.
“I definitely expect there will be changes for the next match against Navy,” said head coach Steve Mauro. “We are going to experiment with some different partners. We are actually practicing tomorrow morning and we are going to try out some different combinations.”
VCU won all but two of the singles matches. Mummadi and Doroshenko were the only Temple players to come away with a victory.
Mauro found other positives for the team despite only two victories.
“The other courts fought hard,” Mauro said “There are some tweaks we need to make in their game and the right shot selection.”
The Owls are still without senior Oyku Boz, who is still nursing a neck injury. Mauro believes she will be a big boost for the doubles team.
“Some of our players have been injured,” Mauro said. “So hopefully we can get Oyku Boz, one of our seniors, back, and hopefully she can play and help us out in doubles as well.”
The Owls will look to bounce back from their first loss as they travel to Annapolis, Maryland, to battle Navy (1-0, 0-0 Patriot League) on March 6.
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