GREENSBORO – A mystery team will head into the 2023 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Women's Tennis Championship Tournament, April 20-23, in Williamsburg, Va., and that team is North Carolina A&T.
The Aggies defeated the Longwood Lancers 4-1 Thursday afternoon at the Piedmont Indoor Tennis Center to improve to 7-5. What's curious about A&T is that they played without the full complement of players for much of the season.
They are 4-1 when all six players play. But what is impressive about the Aggies is that they won twice with only five players and once with only four players. What do opponents make of that? Just how good are the Aggies?
Well, they looked outstanding in handing Longwood its fifth straight loss to drop the Lancers to 6-14 on the season. A year ago, when both teams were members of the Big South Conference, Longwood took down the Aggies 7-0. The Lancers jumped ahead of the Aggies early on Thursday by capturing the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 doubles.
Emma Nurgazieva and Karina Rizvanova defeated A&T's No. 1 duo, Isabela Romanichen and Lana Caculovic, 6-2, and Wiktoria Czerny and Sophia Marchetta won at No. 3 with a win over A&T's Nour Gueblaoui and Asima Sazan 6-3.
The Aggies only win in doubles came from Cielo Tapia-Cruz and Nuria Sanz with their 6-3 win over Maria Saez and Nina Hederich. The Tapia-Curz/Sanz duo has won three straight to improve to 5-5 on the season. "We played well today by going to the net and stinging them with our servers," said Sanz.
Tapia Cruz had a marathon first set against Saez in singles play before winning 7-5 at No. 2 singles. She went on to win the second set 6-2. She called the match a real fight as she improved to 7-3 on the season. At No. 4 singles, Romanichen had a challenging second set against Marchetta, winning 7-5. She won the first set 6-3, improving to 4-1 in 2023.
The Aggies No. 1 singles player, Caculovic, won 6-4, 6-3 over Nurgazieva before the Aggies received their fourth victory with Sanz defeating Rizvanova 6-4, 6-4. Sanz, a freshman, improved to 10-0 on the season.
A&T did have two matches go unfinished. Crzerny led Gueblaoui 6-4, 3-2 before the No. 5 singles match ended after the Aggies clinched. Sazan led 6-4, 2-1 over Barton before the match ended.
"I played better than yesterday," Sanz said, referring to her straight-set win over Bluefield State's Victoria Cabral on Wednesday. "I served into her backhand and made her run. I had tough moments, but I think I fixed them. My mentality was better today. Let's keep working for the rest of the season."
The remainder of the season will see the Aggies receive a long break from competition before traveling to Winston-Salem, NC, to play the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at the Wake Forest Tennis Center on Sunday, April 16, at 4 p.m.
The next day the Aggies head to Raleigh to face Shaw University at noon. It is then off to Virginia, where who knows what will happen if the Aggies bring all six sensational players.
