In two parallel lines before matches, Syracuse players volleyed balls toward a painting of Otto the Orange inside Drumlins Country Club. Dina Hegab ran up before SU’s matchup against Virginia and played the volley from head coach Younes Limam. Sometimes she missed the shot, hitting it into the ground, others hit right at Otto.

After everyone else left the court, Hegab stayed behind and continued to volley off the wall by herself. She swung to her left on one volley practice attempt, hit the rebound back to her right, and watched it bounce past her. On both shots, she missed Otto.

“I’ve loved playing against the wall,” Hegab said, “since I was young.”

Hegab’s only satisfied when she hits Otto in her pregame practice shots, but recently, her shot has been off, and it’s shown. After clinching Syracuse’s first four matches to start the season, Hegab has suffered four-straight singles’ losses. Hegab, who’s called “Dina the Machina” by her teammates and coaches, is far from her early success, and needs to break out of her slump to help No. 19 Syracuse (4-4, 0-2 Atlantic Coast).

“We always talk about how numbers don’t really matter,” Hegab said. “We just need to get our job done in whatever spot we play.”

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For Hegab, her struggles have affected both singles and doubles. Trailing 4-1 in her doubles match with Guzal Yusupova against UVA, Hegab double faulted twice and handed Virginia its last two points in that game. Not only did the two start slow, but poor shots down the stretch eliminated any chance at a comeback.

That loss marked the second-straight doubles loss for the pairing. Over the next three matches, that streak extended to five. And Hegab and Yusupova’s perils have translated to the team’s overall doubles play — since winning three-straight doubles points, SU has lost the last five.

“Doubles goes quickly,” Limam said. “There’s no time to wonder or to work your way back into matches.”

Hegab had the team’s only undefeated singles record as SU rose to No. 10 in the rankings. But she lost four straight sets entering the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Championships, and left Seattle having lost eight of her last nine sets.

Against Brown on Jan. 19, her serves were returned into the net. Against Columbia that same weekend, her rallies found the baseline and became winners. Her power produced a match-clinching forehand winner against the Lions. Her finesse showed earlier in day, when she followed up a Yusupova volley with a drop volley of her own.

After her extra session of volleys before Virginia, Hegab cleaned up the balls and huddled around Limam with associate head coach Shelley George. Limam went through a backhand shot in slow motion, while Hegab nodded and mimicked the form.

She knows her problems are fixable. “It’s just came down to a few points here or there,” Hegab said. Trailing 5-2 in the first set against Columbia’s Andrea Kevakian, Hegab sulked behind the line in between games with a towel lining her neck. After a few paces back and forth, she dropped the towel and proceeded to break Kevakian. Despite dropping the first set, she recovered to take the match in three sets.

In the past, her extra work has paid off. During the recent losing streak, her approach hasn’t changed. The results just haven’t followed.

Published on February 13, 2019 at 11:34 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew