(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)
After going through one of their worst stretches of the season, 1-5 in a six-game stretch. The Sun Devils needed to change the trajectory of their season fast. They had the perfect opportunity to do so when the team finally returned home after a two-week road trip.
Friday saw the No. 1 player, senior Guilia Morlet, finally return to the singles lineup Friday against Washington State, and the Sun Devils (8-3) won the match 4-2. After a tough stretch, ASU had finally won two games in a row.
On Saturday, they hosted No. 25 Washington, and for the Sun Devils, this was a perfect opportunity to turn their season around, offering an opportunity to grab their second top-25 win on the season. Regardless, this team always takes it one match at a time.
“Every match is an individual match for sure,” head coach Sheila McInerney said. “We struggled a little bit with Washington State, which played really well against us. So just one match at a time, one day at a time.”
The opportunity was seized on Saturday morning when ASU (11-8, 3-4 Pac-12) dominated No. 25 Washington (14-7, 3-3 Pac-12), sweeping the Huskies 4-0. The Sun Devils are a different team when they’re at home, improving their home record to 9-3 on the season.
The team knew how badly they needed this top-25 win. ASU’s record before Saturday against the top teams was just 1-8, and it’s the only win coming against No. 7 Ohio State at home. Going into the rest of Pac-12 play, this win is a confidence booster.
“We didn’t have a lot of ranked wins,” Morlet said. “So knowing that we’re approximately all super healthy now because we’ve had a couple of injuries. Winning those three matches in a row, for sure, is gonna help build confidence.”
Junior Patricija Spaka and sophomore Chelsea Fontenel, who are ranked No. 34 in the ITA rankings, started the domination early for ASU. They cleaned up on court 1, easily taking down the No. 56 doubles team in the country, graduate Astrid Olsen and freshman Alexia Jacobs, 6-4. The ASU duo secured the doubles win by forcing the Huskies duo to hit an out.
Fontenel and Spaka are now 10-5 on the season in doubles play and 4-1 in conference play.
The doubles point clincher came from court 2 with Morlet and freshman Sara Svetac defeating Washington’s graduate Dariya Detkovskaya and sophomore Erika Matsuda, 7-5. It was a similar ending to court 1, with the Huskies duo hitting an out on the right corner of the court.
Going into singles play, it was the freshman who got the Sun Devils to match point. Svetac and freshman Emilija Tverijonaite both won their matches to give ASU a quick three-to-zero lead in the match. Svetac won on court 6 (6-2, 6-4) after Huskies Sarah-Maude Fortin couldn’t get the ball over the net. Tverijonaite won on court 5 (6-3, 6-3).
Finally, to close out the game for the Sun Devils, it came down to No. 1 player Morlet on court 1. After not completing her first full singles match back from injury on Friday, Morlet won the first set of her singles match 6-4 but found herself down 2-4 in the second set. The Parisian climbed all the way back up and clinched the match for ASU (6-4, 6-4) over Matsuda.
With the win on court 1, Morlet improved her singles record to 7-3 on the season. After not playing for nearly a month, she was happy to finally be on the court, and she was even happier those two matches were at home.
“I missed it,” Morlet said. “It was really painful when I heard I couldn’t play for a couple of weeks. Watching the girls play and being out there on the court, and me trying to help them really gave me more hunger. I really wanted to come back out there and fight for my team and fight for the program.
“Coming back for my first two matches at home, with the people in the stands, it’s super nice. It gave me more energy, and there was this little girl in the stands saying, ‘Trust Yourself.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I should trust myself. I got this,’ and it was super nice.”
Now, with a short stint at home, the Sun Devils go right back on the road for what coach McInerney said was the team’s toughest road trip of the season. Next week, the team travels up north to take on Utah and Colorado, and the altitude will definitely impact the matches.
“You got to swing your rackets a couple pawns tighter, so it makes a difference,” McInerney said. “The sport of tennis makes as much of a difference as baseball. Tennis is a little bit the same. The ball sort of travels off your racket quicker.
McInerney said that to combat the elevation, the team will travel a couple of days early and practice for two days beforehand to get used to the very big adjustment.
Going into next weekend, the Sun Devils can make it five straight wins in a row, but Morlet has learned the tough way this season to take things one game at a time.
“Every time we set goals and super high expectations for us, something bad happens,” Morlet said. “Someone gets injured, so honestly, we just want to stay healthy and give everything we have on the court. But if everyone gives 100% of their capacity, I feel like we’re gonna be in good shape.”
