Women's Tennis Takes Losses to Saint Francis and Duquesne Over the Weekend

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Bucknell women's tennis team dropped a pair of matches over the weekend, falling to Saint Francis in a neutral site match, and to Duquesne on the road.

“We're just not getting out timing down yet. It's been too difficult to transition from a fast rubber surface to a slow regular court. Our timing is off, causing us to commit way too many unforced errors,” said Bucknell head coach Rebecca Helt.

Junior Maria Cioffi and freshman Lisa Jouravleva continued their great start to the spring season with wins against Saint Francis, but Bucknell lost two of three doubles matches and three singles matches in a 4-2 defeat.

Cioffi was a 6-1, 6-1 winner over Shivani Patel at No. 1 singles, while Jouravleva outlasted Rafa Panizza 7-6, 2-6, 6-3 at No. 2. Jouravleva improved to 3-0 during the spring.

“We were down three starters for this match which does make a difference, but we have enough depth that we should be able to be more competitive than this,” Helt said. “Once we are able to get outside regularly, it'll start coming together for us. Our focus is always on the second half of the season.”

The Bison lost to Duquesne 4-0 in a match that was shortened due to weather concerns.

“We played a shortened, no-AD format for this match and stopped the match at four points,” Helt said. “We had a lot of games that were deuce games but we didn't handle that no-AD point very well. Our players need to keep working on their confidence in execution and believe in their skills and training. We were still down a couple of starters for this match but our lower players actually came out playing very well, but didn't get a chance to finish their matches.”

Bucknell fell to 0-4 overall this season. Duquesne improved to 4-3, while Saint Francis upped its record to 3-4.

The Bison will travel to New York for a pair of matches this weekend. They are scheduled to play at Niagara on Saturday and at Saint Bonaventure on Sunday.