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In 2023, Syracuse began hot. It won each of its first three meetings of the season, only losing two total matches during the span. And now in 2024, the Orange are off to an even more lopsided start — sweeping their third consecutive match.

Syracuse (3-0, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) dominated at home Saturday, defeating St. Bonaventure (1-3, 0-0 Atlantic 10) 7-0. SU won all three of its doubles matches along with all six singles matches. In eight of their nine total matches, the Orange won in straight sets.

The biggest story of the day for Syracuse was the debut of two newcomers, sophomore Emilie Elde from Norway and freshman Constance Levivier from France.

Levivier had a strong day. She started off being paired with Miyuka Kimoto, the team’s No. 1-ranked player. The duo handled Anastasia Gubanova and Isabella Venter 6-2. Levivier continued her dominant showing in singles.

Kimoto and Levivier also did some pregame mediating to help Levivier get into the right mindset coming into her debut.

“(Levivier) was nervous before the match,” Kimoto said. “I just set her up and she (took advantage).”

The France native then cruised to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Kashish Bote.

Syracuse head coach Younes Limam was very impressed with how Levivier came out of the gates and is excited to see her development over the course of the season.

“Constance put us on the scoreboard pretty quickly,” Limam said. “I am excited about her future as an Orange.”

As SU tried to work in its two new athletes, Kimoto got the rest of the day off and sat out during singles. This comes a year after Syracuse struggled to stay healthy down the stretch.

Elde and Ines Fonte shared similar success in their doubles match, winning 6-1 over Sienna Smith and Abbie Tyler. Shiori Ito and Anastasia Sysoeva made it a clean sweep in the doubles, beating Kelly Barnes and Cirkeline Lundberg 6-1.

In singles, Ito was in command from beginning to end, as she didn’t allow her opponent to win a single game, defeating Barnes 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets. Polina Kozyreva also had a dominant showing, winning 6-1, 6-0 over Gubanova. Viktoriya Kanapatskaya handled Tyler 6-1, 6-2, and Fonte defeated Smith 6-2, 6-2.

The only match that went the distance was Elde against Venter. The two had a lengthy first-set battle. It appeared Venter had the set in the bag when she took a 5-2 lead, but Elde came roaring back to tie the set at five apiece. Venter did prevail to win the next two games and the set 7-5.

After a roller-coaster first set, Elde settled down and found her groove. The newcomer making her debut went on to win the second set 6-2. With the Orange already up 6-0 at this point, Elde and Venter played a tiebreaker to decide the match instead of the traditional third set. Elde carried her momentum into the tiebreaker, besting Venter and earning the victory in her Syracuse debut.

“(Elde and Levivier) handled (their first live action) extremely well, especially with Emilie being in a super tiebreaker,” Limam said. “She played within herself and played the big points better than her opponent.”

Published on January 27, 2024 at 3:54 pm