Temple University women’s tennis (1-0, 0-0 The American Athletic Conference) swept Fairleigh Dickinson (0-1, 0-0 Northeast Conference) 7-0 at the Cherry Hill Racquet Club in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on Sunday afternoon, cementing the Owls’ seventh consecutive win against the Knights dating back to the 2014-15 season.
The Owls dominated throughout the event as they won two out of three doubles matches and all six singles matches.
Temple’s first double pairing of juniors Stefaniya Surikova and Rine Nozaki defeated Knights juniors Smriti Singh and Isabelle Ismanescu 6-1.
Temple’s freshman pair of Ling Hsuan Wei and Sena Takebe won 6-2 in the second doubles match against graduate student Tatiana Eftenoiu and senior Anamaria Vladescu.
Knights sophomores Amina Lasheen and Shreya Gulia took down Temple freshman Vineetha Mummadi and graduate student Oleksandra Doroshenko 6-3 to close out doubles. This was the Owls’ lone dropped set in the entire match.
“In doubles we played pretty well,” said head coach Steve Mauro. “Serving and returning serves really stood out in my mind as something we are going to practice this week to get ready for [Virginia Commonwealth University].”
Temple won every singles match, with Mummadi, Wei and Takebe all notching their first collegiate singles wins. The Knights reached four points just once in the singles sets.
“It was nice to see we have three new freshman starters,” Mauro said. “They stood out today especially in singles. I mean everyone won their matches, but it was great to get their first collegiate win.”
Inclement weather pushed the season back almost a month later than the usual start time. Because of all the postponements, the Owls struggled to stay focused for their first match, Mauro said.
“We’ve tried to keep the girls motivated with practice matches,” Mauro added. “We just try and keep our spirits up and go with the flow, but at the end of the day we are just happy we can practice and compete.”
The Owls will look to build on their victory when they match up with Virginia Commonwealth University (4-4, 0-0 The Atlantic 10) in Richmond, Virginia, on Feb. 26 at 9 a.m.
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