After finally snapping a seven-game losing streak, Simone Kalhorn and Syracuse now have confidence.

So much, in fact, that Kalhorn attempted a risky kick serve throughout most of her match against Colgate’s Samantha Inacker. The move could have easily put the Orange back into a losing streak.

Despite a few faults and mistakes with the serve, Kalhorn and the rest of the Syracuse tennis team finished the day victorious. The Orange defeated the Raiders, 7-0, its second sweep in as many days, Wednesday at the Drumlins Country Club. SU (8-11, 5-4 Big East) defeated Villanova on Tuesday, 7-0.

Kalhorn and Tan were the only Syracuse pair to lose its match. Chelsea Jones and Ashley Spicer won, 8-5, and Maria Vasilyeva and Christina Tan won their match, 8-6. The two wins gave Syracuse the one doubles point of the match.

The freshman Kalhorn defeated Inacker 6-3, 6-1; however parts of the match were rocky for Kalhorn.

Introducing the serve Wednesday after just snapping a personal eight-match losing streak seems risky for Kalhorn, but SU head coach Luke Jensen boasts about her athletic ability and her need for some extra skills against nationally ranked players.

‘I’ve been working on my kick serve, that has all that spin, all the time in practice,’ Kalhorn said. ‘I was trying not to blow her off the court with my shots, but I wanted to stay consistent and play hard.’

A kick serve differs from a normal tennis serve based on how the player throws the ball up and the way the racket hits it. With a kick serve, the player tosses the ball up behind her head, and the racket hits the ball upward, instead of downward. The ball kicks in at the other side of the court, making for a difficult return

Even though Kalhorn is not executing the kick serve perfectly, Jensen saw the match against Colgate (7-5) as the perfect opportunity for her to practice it because it is a weapon she is going to need against Notre Dame and in the Big East tournament, he said.

The singles match was not the first time Kalhorn and Inacker met on the court that day – they faced each other in doubles play as well. However, the outcome was not in Kalhorn’s favor.

Kalhorn and doubles partner Jacquelynn Tang lost to Inacker and partner Elise Derose, 8-1. During the doubles match, Colgate’s pair dominated the first set. Inacker’s 5-foot-11 frame was too much for Syracuse’s No. 2 and No. 6 singles players.

Tang hit too many long balls that went out of bounds, and Kalhorn did not go after balls aggressively.

During one attempt of the kick serve, also known as an American twist, during her singles match, she dropped her racket after the serve. Inacker returned the ball, but Kalhorn had enough time to pick up her racket and return the ball over the net. Kalhorn went on to lose that point of the game, but it showed Jensen her resiliency.

‘I couldn’t believe I dropped the racket,’ Kalhorn said. ‘I just wanted to pick it up, stay in the game and remain aggressive. I wanted to be consistent with my returns so I had to pick it up right away.’

Most of Kalhorn’s risks paid off on a day when almost nothing seemed to go wrong for the Orange.

‘We barely made it in doubles play,’ Jones said. ‘But we all showed them what we were made of during singles play.’

Jones defeated Colgate’s Jackie Stimmel, 6-1, 6-0. Jones used her two-handed forehand serve to dominate her way through the singles match. Jones dominated her singles matches the past two games, rebounding from a crucial loss against Pittsburgh.

Even though Kalhorn faltered in doubles play, she took what she learned from the doubles match against Inacker and turned it into a singles win.

During the singles match, Kalhorn was constantly running and shuffling her feet so she would be ready to return the ball. Whereas Inacker seemed to stand still and hardly move to return the ball.

‘I didn’t play as aggressive as I should in the doubles match,’ Kalhorn said. ‘Once we lost a few games during that match we kind of just took ourselves out of it, and I wanted to turn that around in my singles match.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on March 26, 2008 at 12:00 pm