By Chris Spiker
Staff Writer
Saturday, the tennis teams took on the Xavier Muskateers. The women (3-16, 1-5) fell, 6-1, and the men (5-13, 1-4) lost 7-0.
Yesterday, the women’s team partook in the first round of Atlantic 10 Championships. The 15th-seed women played the two-seed Musketeers (17-5, 8-0) in Charlottesville, Va. at noon. The match results were not available at press time. The winner of the match will play the winner of seventh-seed Fordham and 10th-seed Duquesne Friday at 1 p.m. VCU earned the No. 1 overall seed in their first year in the A-10.
Sophomore Marisa Brossard earned the Bonnies’ only two victories Saturday. Brossard won in second singles 6-2, 6-2 and joined classmate Fatya Amiri for a 9-8 (6) victory in first doubles. Head Coach Michael Bates said Brossard continued her strong recent play.
“She kept the pressure on and didn’t make many mistakes,” Bates said.
Bates said he hopes the women repeat their strong first doubles performance and earn the doubles point in second doubles.
“Hopefully we can get a win at number two doubles as well,” Bates said. “They’ve got to be a little more aggressive.”
Amiri hopes the women utilize their regular season preparation for the season’s final tournament.
“Although it will be tough to play the second seed Xavier, with the small team we have, we are all just going to go and give it everything we have,” Amiri said.
Freshman Taylor Cole played her first match since Feb. 9 against Colgate, missing 12 matches with a foot stress fracture. Bates said he hopes Saturday’s performance will help Cole play well in the A-10 championships.
“It’s hard to get back and start playing right away against a top, quality team,” Bates said.
Amiri said the women overcome the adversity of their injuries together.
“The past two years, we have dealt with a lot of injuries, but it has brought us together because when we lose, we lose as a team,” Amiri said. “We all feel the same emotions.”
Three Bona’s men forced third sets in their singles matches before ultimately losing to the Musketeers (18-4, 7-0) Saturday. Senior Oscar Yanez fell 6-2, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1 in second singles and senior Luis Guevara lost 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in third singles. Junior Javier Ortiz swept his fourth singles opponent in the first set before losing 0-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4. Despite the 7-0 sweep, Bates said the men had plenty of opportunities to grab points from Xavier.
“We played a pretty good match,” Bates said. “We had chances in doubles, up at the break in first and second doubles.”
The men rest this weekend before travelling to Mason, Ohio, for the Atlantic 10 championships April 25-28. Bates said the men need to fine tune their in-match situational play before the tournament.
“At this point, you don’t need to work on forehands and backhands,” Bates said. “It’s more or less the match play.”
