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Red and White swept in spring opener

By Jordan Rinard Staff Writer

In the first match of the spring season, the Miami University women's tennis team suffered a setback in the form of a 0-7 sweep against Indiana University (IU) at the Western Tennis and Fitness Club in Western Hills, Cincinnati. The RedHawks (0-1) have lost eight consecutive matches to the Hoosiers (1-0) dating back to the 2002-2003 season.

After only being able to snag four games in doubles play, Miami dropped all three decisions to Indiana and allowed IU to pick up the first point of the day.

The team of junior Nimisha Mohan and sophomore Alix Thurman accounted for three of those games against IU's tandem of sophomores Alecia Kauss and Shannon Murdy before losing 3-8.

The duo of junior Christiana Raymond and sophomore Christine Guerrazzi earned the other game in a 1-8 defeat at the hands of junior Sophie Garre and senior Leslie Hureau.

The pair of sophomore Ramona Costea and freshman Chloe Heerden was the lone doubles team that failed to get a game as they were swept 0-8.

"We started slow and we never really got into the match," Head Coach Anca Dumitrescu. "Once we were faced with opposition, we let the match slip away. We have some adjustments that we need to make before next weekend."

In singles action, the Hoosiers quickly asserted themselves in the match and took the sweep. In four of these matchups, Miami managed to get 14 games while Indiana got 48.

Costea and Guerrazzi both fell 4-6, 0-6, while Thurman and Mohan earned three games each before dropping 1-6, 2-6 and 2-6, 1-6 decisions respectively.

Two bright spots for the RedHawks were the play of Raymond and Heerden. In their singles matchups, they had the opportunity to win and challenged their opponents Kauss, who was named the Big Ten Conference's Tennis Athlete of the Week on January 15, and senior Jithmie Jayawickrema to 6-4, 4-6, 0-1 and 5-7, 3-6 decisions, respectively.

"We weren't able to do our job and we didn't handle adversity very well," Dumitrescu said. "We need to work on picking up crucial points and just work on getting better for next weekend."

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Raymond also spoke of what transpired on Saturday.

"We had a tough match against a tough opponent, and we learned a lot from the match that we took away and will use to work on this week during practice to prepare for Louisville and Cincinnati next weekend," she said. "Despite being a tough loss, it was only our first match of the season. We are a fairly young team so we are looking forward to continuing to work hard and improve throughout the season."

The RedHawks return to action next weekend as they face big non-conference road tests at the University of Louisville and the University of Cincinnati 4 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, respectively.