Canes win on Senior Day, continue streak against FAU

Estela Perez-Somarriba hits a backhand shot against the University of Virginia on April 4 at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center. Perez-Somarriba was honored as the only senior on the team. Photo credit: Alex Carnochan
Estela Perez-Somarriba hits a backhand shot against the University of Virginia on April 4 at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center. Perez-Somarriba was honored as the only senior on the team.
Estela Perez-Somarriba hits a backhand shot against the University of Virginia on April 4 at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center. Perez-Somarriba was honored as the only senior on the team. Photo credit: Alex Carnochan

To cap off an already successful regular season, the No. 23 Canes defeated Florida Atlantic University on Senior Day 6-1. The Canes honored two-time ACC Player of the Year and former NCAA singles champion Estela Perez-Somarriba at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center in her last home match of the year.

The Canes (12-7, 8-5 ACC) dominated nearly every match, improving their all-time record against FAU (8-6, 2-0 CUSA) to 33-0 and getting their second win of the season against the Owls.

Sophomore Daevenia Achong led the team to its first win of the day, defeating Florida Atlantic’s May Kimhi 6-1, 6-3. The former champion and current NCAA No. 3 Perez-Somarriba wasn’t too far behind. She defeated redshirt junior Natalia Boltinskaya 6-0, 6-1, taking the first 10 games of the match.

Freshman Maya Tahan defeated redshirt junior Louie McLelland 6-1, 6-1 and classmate Isabella Pfennig followed, defeating Martina Kudelova in a second set tiebreaker 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).

Miami only suffered one singles defeat, with freshman Diana Jordan falling to sophomore Katerina Filip 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (10-7), but Florencia Urrutia bounced back to bring Miami another win. Freshman Urrutia defeated Radka Buzkova after three tiebreaker sets 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (1-7), 1-0 (10-5).

The team continued to show its strength through the doubles matches. Achong and Urrutia teamed up to defeat Boltinskaya and McLelland 6-1 and No. 24 Khodan and Tahan clinched the win, defeating Filip and Kimhi 6-2. The No. 34 duo of Perez-Somarriba and Pfenning stopped play early after the win was clinched, but were competitive against Buzkova and Kudelova, leaving the match at 3-4.

The Canes will head north to Rome, Georgia for the ACC Tennis Championship on April 21-25 at Berry College. The team enters the tournament as the No. 7 seed and will face the No. 10 seed Notre Dame on Thursday at 11:30 a.m.