The Syracuse tennis team went into last weekend’s Cornell Invitational Tournament focusing more on fixing the kinks than on winning.

After all, Syracuse already had a regulation victory over Colgate. So the Orangewomen relished the chance to get in a few more practice games.

‘We’re all a little bit rusty,’ junior Alexa Konstand said. ‘We all haven’t really played (many) matches since … the beginning of November. Practice is so different. You can’t get the same experience (as you can in a game).”

It showed in SU’s play.

The Orangewomen weren’t particularly successful in singles or doubles play. Only one doubles pair and one singles player made it past the first round.

Senior Daniela Kaluskova defeated Akane Kokubo of Cornell (6-2, 6-3) to become the only Syracuse player to advance through the first round in any of the three singles brackets. Though Kaluskova then lost to Columbia’s Mollie Condit (6-3, 6-0) in the second round, she was victorious in the third-place consolation match, beating Laura Leigh Tallent of Cornell (6-1, 6-0).

Masha Kabanova and Shervin Saedinia, a senior duo, won their first-round match, giving Syracuse its only first-round doubles victory. Saedinia and Kabanova defeated Cornell’s duo of Erika Takeuchi and Liying Wang, 8-4, but lost, 9-8, in the next round to Columbia’s pairing of Lucia Aniello and Shelly Mittal.

‘I would have liked to have seen them do better,’ Syracuse head coach Mac Gifford said. ‘I don’t want to make excuses, but we’ve only had about a week of practice. Maybe a week and a half.’

Players experimented with new shots and adjustments, which may have contributed to the poor play.

‘We’re still figuring out what we need to work on,’ Kabanova said, ‘what’s good, what’s bad.’

‘I was so glad to see them venturing into new parts of their game,’ Gifford said. ‘There was a lot of improvement in the areas I wanted them to work on.’

Any improvements this early in the season will only help the Orangewomen as they begin to encounter Big East rivals.

‘This team has its mind set on how well they will do in the Big East,’ Gifford said. ‘We’re [about] to get into the hard part of the season.’

Published on February 2, 2003 at 12:00 pm