Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

UMass tennis sweeps UConn with ease

Rehan Talat/Collegian

The Massachusetts tennis team pulled together as a team on Wednesday and swept Connecticut, 7-0.

Ace doubles pair Yuliana Motyl and Chantal Swiszcz won the No. 1 doubles match, 8-5. Sonia Bokhari and Chanel Glasper followed it up with an 8-2 win in the No. 2 doubles match, and Jessica Podlofsky and Arielle Griffin completed the doubles sweep for the Minutewomen with an 8-2 win in No. 3 doubles.

Despite missing No. 3 singles player Julia Comas due to an injury, the Minutewomen didn’t miss a beat, as Motyl, Bokhari, Podlofsky, Griffin and Glasper would go on to win in the No. 1 to 5 singles matches as well. Jocelyn Providence made the match a complete sweep with a 6-3, 6-3, win in the No. 6 singles match.

UMass coach Judy Dixon said she was pleased with the team’s overall performance.

“I think that in some cases we played well,” Dixon said. “In other cases, we fought like crazy, didn’t play our best, but fought like crazy, and that was really good.”

Dixon said that the victory was a team effort and that the team showed a lot of improvement in terms of its teamwork.

“I would say today they were much more focused, and more intent, and therefore more intense, and today they played like a team, from the top on down,” Dixon said. “I think that we’ve taken a real big step in the right direction.”

Dixon said that this is the time of year where a tennis team has to figure out who they are, and that she is starting to see what she has in this year’s team.

“We are typically what I would call a blue collar tennis team, which I know is sort of a non sequitur, but we are a blue collar tennis team,” Dixon said. “We are a team that gets in your face and we are a team that likes to intimidate the other team because we fight so hard, and I’m beginning to see that with this team.”

The team will not be playing again until Nov. 2, when it travels to Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H., for the Big Green Invitational, where the Minutewomen will face players from schools including Dartmouth, Boston University and Yale.

Dixon said that while the absence of Comas did not cost the Minutewomen in this last match, it could be more of a factor against the teams they will face in the upcoming tournament. She said Comas isn’t expected to return until January.

Despite the absence of Comas and the tough teams UMass will face in the tournament, Dixon said she feels “pretty relaxed” about it, and sees it as an opportunity for the team to scout future competition  and challenge themselves.

“It gives us a chance to see them, to scout some of the players. It gives us a chance to see what our competition looks like,” Dixon said. “I think that this is really the best that the Northeast has to offer, these kinds of teams, and so I look forward to the challenge, I hope that the kids do.”

Jesse Mayfield-Sheehan can be reached at [email protected].

 

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