Graduate Irina Cantos Siemers forehands a return during her singles match against Northwestern at the Ty Tucker Tennis Center. Ohio State won 5-2. Credit: Casey Smith | Lantern File Photo
Four has become the Ohio State women’s tennis team’s lucky number.
The No. 12 Buckeyes (5-1, 0-0 Big Ten) closed out their weekend matches with their fourth-consecutive 4-0 win of the season against the No. 13 UCLA Bruins (2-3, 0-0 Pacific-12) at the Ty Tucker Tennis Center Sunday afternoon.
Winning the doubles point has been big for the Buckeyes, and they earned their fifth doubles victory in a row against the Bruins, continuing their streak of the spring season just as head coach Melissa Schaub said she hoped to achieve.
On court two, graduate Irina Cantos Siemers and freshman Audrey Spencer topped their opponents, Sasha Vagramov and Kimmi Hance, 6-3 to tie doubles after UCLA’s Ahmani Guichard and Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer won their match 6-1 against Ohio State senior Madeline Atway and junior Shelly Bereznyak on court three.
Shortly after the court two victory, freshman Luciana Perry and junior Sydni Ratliff went on to defeat Tian Fangran and Elise Wagle 6-3 and put the Buckeyes in the lead 1-0.
“As far as doubles go, we’ve worked really hard on them in practice, so to get that fifth doubles point in a row today was a really big win for us,” Perry said.
Perry and Ratliff are now undefeated 5-0 in doubles matches this spring.
At the start of the singles matches the Buckeyes took four of the six first sets with wins from Perry, Cantos Siemers, Atway and Bereznyak.
Perry was unstoppable in her singles match against the Bruins freshman Bianca Fernandez with the Buckeye losing just two games in each set and winning both her first and second sets 6-2.
“Wearing the Ohio State logo on my chest, I compete with everything that I have, and I think that’s what I did today,” Perry said.
With Ohio State in a 2-0 lead, Cantos Siemers defeated Fangran 6-3 in both sets on court one, advancing the Buckeyes’ lead to 3-0.
On court four, Bereznyak broke on the no-ad point for a 5-2 advantage in the second set, then closed out her singles match after topping Wagle in the first and second sets, clinching Ohio State’s victory over UCLA.
“I’m really happy that I clinched today,” Bereznyak said. “I was hitting the ball way better today than I have been in other matches.”
The Buckeye win allowed Shaub and the No. 15 captain Cantos Siemers to break records.
Schaub has been named the program’s all-time wins leader as the Buckeye victory against the Bruins was No. 225 of her coaching career.
Cantos Siemers is also now the program’s leader in singles wins with her singles match success against the Bruins being number 113 for her. The graduate Buckeye now leads with a 5-0 dual mark this season and is 17-7 overall.
“I’m very proud of this team, and I’m excited for what’s to come,” Bereznyak said. “I think big things are gonna happen for us if we keep our energy high and work hard.”
Ohio State is on the road to Seattle this weekend for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Team Indoor Championships Friday through Monday. The schedule is to be announced later this week.
