All season, Luke Jensen has preached to his Syracuse tennis team the importance of the doubles point in winning the overall team match.

But for seven straight matches, Syracuse had failed to win the doubles point of a match, and Syracuse lost all seven of those matches.

The Orange finally earned the crucial first point of the match the Syracuse head coach covets so much, by sweeping the three doubles matches against Villanova Tuesday to start the match.

Syracuse used that momentum to win every singles match, defeating the Wildcats, 7-0, at the Drumlins Country Club.

‘Everything comes down to the doubles point as far as a springboard,’ Jensen said. ‘It’s so hard to recover if you lose that first point. From the outside it doesn’t seem like a big deal, it’s one point, but it gives so much momentum.’

Prior to Tuesday, the last time Syracuse had won the doubles point was against Connecticut on Feb. 17. That was also the last match the Orange won.

Sophomores Ashley Spicer and Chelsea Jones won their second consecutive doubles game The duo defeated Villanova’s Daniella Phillis and Courtney Reed, 8-2. The pair was the only doubles team to win its match against Pittsburgh on Sunday.

Spicer and Jones were the most energetic doubles team on the court, cheering after every point and aggressively going after every ball.

Jensen praised all the doubles teams, especially the duo of Jones and Spicer. Jones rebounded from a final set loss against Pittsburgh’s Carlie Smith in the last match of SU’s 4-3 loss Sunday.

Spicer tallied several aces against her singles opponent Phillis, in a 6-0, 6-0 win.

‘All through practices, we’ve been working on executing, making our opponent hit one more ball,’ Spicer said. ‘We all made them hit one more ball to the point they would miss it, and we would get the point.’

Spicer said not having to think about being down a point when Syracuse entered the singles play took a lot of pressure off them and helped the team focus on its individual singles matches.

Christina Tan and Maria Vasilyeva snapped their two-game losing streak as a doubles pair, winning, 9-7. The duo began playing with each other against Central Florida on March 14. Their win against Villanova marked the tandem’s first as a team.

‘I’m so happy with the doubles teams right now,’ Jensen said. ‘The team no longer looks nervous. They are laughing, confidently going after balls. This is a turning point that is going to give us momentum going into the final part of the season.’

Playing at the No. 2 position, Tan and Vasilyeva’s doubles match had the closest score of all of the matches, but rallying behind their team’s cheers, the pair went on to victory.

‘Everyone came out so much louder and strong this game,’ Tan said. ‘To not only win the doubles point, but to sweep all three matches really puts a damper on Villanova. They lost three sets, so that helps us play off their set-back.’

Tan said Vasilyeva and she had a simple game plan: make their shots and keep the ball in play. Tan said they had been lacking in executing shots, and by simply putting shots across the net, it makes their opponent works harder.

Winning the doubles point again Tuesday against Colgate will once again be emphasized as the Orange maintains hope of competing in the Big East tournament.

‘Winning this match helped us settle down and not worry about being on a losing streak,’ Spicer said. ‘We can build momentum from this and take what we learned in doubles and singles play and put them into action against really tough teams.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on March 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm