Polina Kozyreva turned around to face her teammates, looked down at her racket and took a sip out of her water bottle. She’d just double faulted, dropping the first set of her singles match, 6-3. 

Two courts away, Kozyreva watched No. 77 Guzal Yusupova lose a point down the alley to seventh-ranked Kelly Chen. In her first match back from a left ankle injury, nothing Kozyreva saw instilled confidence to turn her match around.

In Kozyreva’s first match since twisting her ankle against St. John’s on Feb. 4, No. 10 Duke (9-2, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) swept No. 25 Syracuse (6-2, 1-1). With Kozyreva only healthy enough to just play singles, thin-rostered Syracuse had to forfeit one doubles match in the 7-0 loss. Still, Kozyreva’s return signals a potential path back to normalcy for SU. 

“A lot of it for Polina today was to just get rid of that rust,” head coach Younes Limam said. “She hasn’t played a match for quite some time, and the first set is always tough to get into that mode of competing. Second set she starts finding her rhythm and her style of game and she was in good shape.”

In the first set of her match against Hannah Zhao, Kozyreva tried to avoid her backhand by using her forehand on balls to her left. Down 3-1 in the set and 0-15 in the game, Kozyreva ran around a ball in the ad court to hit a forehand. Zhao’s return pushed Kozyreva further left, forcing the freshman to hit a backhand. Kozyreva swung and missed, then looked upwards and sighed in frustration. On the very next point, Kozyreva hit a forehand in the net, dropping the fifth game.

“Put some more shape in that forehand,” Limam yelled to Kozyreva, using his finger to draw a looping curve.

After the first set, Kozyreva’s errors diminished while Zhao’s mistakes grew. With Kozyreva leading 4-2 in the second set, Zhao’s serve to the ad court missed long. Then her second serve hit the net, resulting in a let. On her third try, Zhao faulted, falling behind by three games.

While momentum in Kozyreva’s match shifted toward Syracuse, the energy didn’t carry over to her teammates. 

Senior Miranda Ramirez lost her first singles match of the season to Meible Chi (6-1, 6-2). Ramirez – who rarely misses shots – hit balls long and wide all match long. Freshman Kim Hansen lost her first singles match of the season, and Zeynep Erman was defeated, too. 

“Obviously a lot of things went wrong,” said Ramirez. “It was just kind of a tough day.”

After the match, Limam said Kozyreva quickly regained her rhythm and is still in “good shape” despite missing the past three weeks. Kozyreva just had to shed the “rust,” she said.

“I’m so proud of myself,” Kozyreva said. “It was a great game. I was expecting myself to play as good as I can today.”

At first, Kozyreva’s injury affected her serve because she couldn’t get the proper lift. She said she was “afraid to jump.” 

Kozyreva began to trust her left ankle in the second set, hopping around to test its mobility. After falling on the court against St. John’s on Feb. 7, Kozyreva started the recovery from the worst injury in her career. “I didn’t have injuries at all,” Kozyreva said. Now, she plays with a black brace on her ankle. 

Since Kozyreva’s injury against St. John’s, Syracuse has struggled to fill the six singles spots and three doubles partnerships. Against Columbia, fellow injured teammate Sofya Golubovskaya attempted to play through injuries. After playing in doubles, Golubovskaya retired due to injury in singles. While Golubovskaya and Kozyreva have been forced to watch from the sidelines, they relied on each other for support. 

“We’re talking with each other and saying to each other, ‘It’s totally normal to get an injury or to just not play today,’” Kozyreva said of her conversations with Golubovskaya. “We just need to control what you can control.”

Published on February 23, 2020 at 5:31 pm

Contact Thomas: tgshults@syr.edu | @ThomasShults_