After losing the doubles point, Syracuse played aggressively in singles play as it tried to win its four necessary singles points.

For a while, the effort had potential. Amanda Rodgers was in a battle of service holds. Rhiann Newborn was up by a solid margin. Breanna Bachini and Nicole Mitchell were within a game in their respective first sets.

But no one could convert on their opportunity, and as a result, Syracuse (6-8, 1-7 Atlantic Coast) was swept by No. 15 Clemson(10-6, 5-2) , 7-0, on Sunday afternoon at Drumlins Tennis Center. It was the team’s fourth-consecutive loss and seventh loss in its last eight matches.

Newborn, who was the only Orange player to take a set, started her match strongly with big serves and hard groundstrokes. Her first breakthrough came when she won a long baseline rally on her opponent’s unforced error to go up a break, at which point she screamed in celebration.

But she eventually dropped the second set after going up a break and lost the ensuing super tiebreaker.

Rodgers had experienced a similar turn of events in her match. In the first set, she and her opponent had held their serves through the first nine games before Rodgers was broken when down 5-4 to lose the set.

SU head coach Younes Limam said that that game went sour because Rodgers did not capitalize on her strengths.

“… If I go back to that game at 5-4,” Limam said, “I remember her having two middle balls that she could have used her forehand on and she hit them with her backhand, a double fault where she didn’t accelerate with her second serve on,”

From there, the match went downhill for Rodgers.

Her opponent dominated the second set, losing only one game to Rodgers, who hit more unforced errors than she had in the first set. She said that her game did not feel quite right, and also that her opponent capitalized on her success.

“She definitely carried the momentum over from the first set into the second set, and her serves were on today,” Rodgers said, “so there was not much I could do on her service games in the second set.”

Rodgers said she faced difficulty when returning her opponent’s serve because it was hard to predict where it would go, even though she can often guess where a serve will land with some success based on the toss. She also said that her opponent’s second serve was strong.

Mitchell was another player who found herself in a tight first set, but she wasn’t able to win a game in the second as her opponent concluded the match with a 6-0 victory.

“She just came out on top,” Mitchell said, “… she just won the bigger points in the end.”

Bachini and Mitchell shared the same 6-4, 6-0 final score.

It was a tough loss for the Orange, who hasn’t won a match since March 1 against Pittsburgh. But Limam finds hope in the solid play that he did see on Sunday.

“We’re right there,” Limam said. “We just need to play at that level for a longer period of time, and I think that’s what made the difference today in our match.”

Published on March 22, 2015 at 8:37 pm

Contact Kevin: kjpacell@syr.edu