For Syracuse, a season that began with much promise has slowly but surely taken a turn for the worse.

The Orange won five of its first six matches at the start of this 2015 campaign. At one point, the team was ranked No. 34 in the country. But SU has since lost eight of 10 matches, falling two games below .500 and at least temporarily killing any hope that this would be a turnaround season.

In that stretch of 10 matches, Syracuse has played six teams ranked in the top 26, including then-No. 1 North Carolina and then-No. 7 Virginia. Such a string of matches would be brutal for any team, let alone one coming off a 5-15 season in 2014.

But SU (7-9, 2-8 Atlantic Coast) sees a silver lining in such a difficult schedule, senior Amanda Rodgers said.

“It’s definitely tough,” said Rodgers, a contributing writer for The Daily Orange, of playing so many top teams. “But at the same time, it’s a lot of fun. And I really wouldn’t want it any other way.”

That kind of attitude has benefited the Orange. Senior Breanna Bachini said Syracuse is a confident bunch, something that she says the recent struggles haven’t affected.

“None of us are going to get down or anything,” Bachini said. “We’re all going to be there to lift each other up, tell each other to keep working hard and pushing yourself in practice every single day. It’s important to just stay positive.”

It’s no secret, however, that simply staying positive hasn’t been able to win SU many matches recently. But head coach Younes Limam insists that it’s important to focus on more than just the outcomes.

“We talk all year long about focusing on the process and focusing on getting better day in and day out,” he said. “… When we lose some matches, we keep things in perspective and we just focus on what we can do that week or that day to get better, to get us ready for our next matches. And I feel like the team has done a great job with that.”

Getting better or not, Syracuse must start winning some matches if it hopes to achieve Limam’s preseason goal of reaching the 64-team NCAA tournament in May. And despite having already suffered eight losses in ACC play, the head coach believes such a goal is still attainable for his team.

“We still have a lot of matches coming up,” he said. “Our goal is to play our best tennis toward the end of the season … We’re not going to focus too much on just the results, but on getting better. And that’s what’s going to get us (to the NCAA tournament).”

Fortunately for the Orange, the matches making up the remainder of its regular season schedule are, at least on paper, not as difficult as the previous 10 matches.

Syracuse will play Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and Georgia Tech, none of which are ranked better than No. 31 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings. Combined, they sport an 11-22 record in ACC play.

Rodgers, for one, hopes that being previously tested against some of the country’s elite teams will give her and her teammates an advantage over the upcoming competition.

“I think it’s helped having played consecutive teams in the Top 25,” she said. “It’s not that it’ll make it seem easier, but it will have prepared us for the next few matches. Win or lose, I know we’ll be playing better tennis than we did seven matches ago.”

Published on March 31, 2015 at 10:41 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu