ESTELLE MANDEVILLE
STAFF WRITER
The women’s tennis team won three doubles and six singles to continue their four-match winning streak on Thursday at home against conference opponent University of Pitt-Greensburg.
Senior Maria Binette and junior Madelyn Conrad started the day with an 8-1 doubles victory over Pitt-Greensburg. Then, junior Gracie Hammel and sophomore Ana Victoria Haddad Garcia shut out Pitt-Greensburg’s next pair for the second Baron win of the day. Seniors Julia Razook and Taranee Karimpour won No. 3 doubles by default.
In singles, Conrad defeated her opponent 6-3, 6-1, and Binette won her set 6-2, 6-1. Garcia only allowed her opponent one point, finishing No. 3 singles with a final score of 6-0, 6-1.
In No. 4 and 5 singles, Razook and Hammel both shut out their opponents, finishing 6-0 for each set. In No. 6 singles, Karimpour won by default.
The Lady Barons’ season is starting out incredibly well, but Head Coach Scott Greve says that they still need improvement. “It’s a great feeling to start the season 4-0, but there is a lot of tennis yet to play and a lot of good competition still in front of us,” he said.
One factor Greve hopes to improve on is “being more aggressive in taking our style of play to our opponents,” he said. “The ladies have made great strides in doing this the past few weeks, but we definitely still have room for improvement. I think this will come naturally as they continue to experience success in matches.”
So far, according to Greve, the Lady Barons have been successfully incorporating into their matches skills they had worked on in practice. “This sounds simple,” he said, “but not every team is able to accomplish this. It leads us to believe that this team has a lot of upsides to their performance on court. This is exciting because they are already playing at a very high level.”
Greve said that the Lady Barons will continue to improve and continue to win throughout the season. Their success relies on the team being coachable and learning from their mistakes. They are in a state of constant improvement.
The Lady Barons’ next game is against Penn State-Behrend, another conference opponent, at home on Sept. 14 at 4 p.m.