Women's Tennis . January 27, 2021

South Carolina Hits the Road to Face Clemson, No. 14 Virginia

Gamecocks Take on Tigers at 2 p.m. Thursday, Cavaliers on Saturday at 4 p.m.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The 18th-ranked South Carolina women’s tennis team is back on the road again this week taking on a pair of ACC opponents with rival Clemson on Thursday and No. 14 Virginia on Saturday.

The Gamecocks enter the week sporting a 2-2 record and take on the 2-0 Tigers at 2 p.m. at the Duckworth Family Tennis Facility. The Cavaliers are 1-1 and will face VCU on Thursday before welcoming South Carolina to Charlottesville, Va., for a 4 p.m. contest at the Boar’s Head Sports Club.

Last Time Out

The Gamecocks’ comeback bid against then-No. 12 Georgia Tech in the ITA Kickoff Weekend fell just short Saturday at the Ken Byers Tennis Complex in Atlanta. The Gamecocks lost the doubles point and split the singles to suffer a 4-3 loss at the hands of the Yellow Jackets.

In doubles, the Gamecocks were knotted up at 3-all on courts one and two, and were tied at 2-all at the No. 3 spot. The Yellow Jackets’ two teams on courts one and two then managed to run off three games in a row to secure the doubles point by a pair of 6-3 finals.

The Gamecocks got back in the match quickly in singles play by taking the first sets on courts two, four, five and six. Allie Gretkowski and Silvia Chinellato both held on for straight set wins at Nos. 4 and 5, and Megan Davies went on to win her match at two in three sets to set up the decisive match on court six between Ana Cruz and Tech’s Mahak Jain. Cruz trailed 5-1 in the third set before storming back to get the score to 5-all, but Jain held on for the 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory.

Gamecock Notables

With matches against Clemson and Virginia this week, the Gamecocks will have played four consecutive matches against ACC opponents.
Through four matches, freshman Allie Gretkowski leads the team in dual singles victories with a 3-1 record. Gretkowski picked up her first career win against a ranked player versus Georgia Tech by downing No. 123 Gia Cohen 7-5, 7-5.
South Carolina was scheduled to face Michigan in the consolation match of the ITA Kickoff Weekend on Sunday, but the Michigan athletics department announced late Saturday night it was putting a pause on competition for all of its athletics teams due to updated protocols needing to be in place for the new variant of COVID-19.
Megan Davies’ current doubles ranking of No. 29 with Mia Horvit is the highest of her career.
The Gamecocks’ highest ranked doubles tandem is currently Silvia Chinellato and Emma Shelton at No. 20. They finished 2019-20 with the team’s top mark at 13-4 and were ranked as high as No. 12 nationally. Chinellato and Shelton went 3-3 in the fall together but so far this season, Shelton has teamed with newcomer Allie Gretkowski at the two spot and Chinellato has played a couple matches with Mia Horvit at one and two with Ana Cruz at three.
Mia Horvit is closing in on history this spring, looking to join the 100-win club in singles. She currently owns an 90-40 record in singles and is in ninth place all-time. She needs just two more to tie Brigit Folland (2013-17) for eighth place. Only three Gamecocks have reached 100 victories with Rita Winebarger (1984-88) leading the way at 127 followed by Ana Marija Zubori (2006-10) with 109 and Lynn-Yin Tan (1998-02) at 103.
Head coach Kevin Epley is in his ninth season with the Gamecocks and will look to record his 300th career win this season. Epley currently has a 289-127 mark in 17 seasons as a head coach at three schools. Epley has amassed a 138-68 record as South Carolina’s head coach and boasts an impressive 62-33 record in regular-season SEC play. He led the Gamecocks to their first SEC title in 2019 when South Carolina captured the SEC Tournament after finishing the regular season with a 12-1 record.
The Gamecocks ended the 2020 season riding a five-match winning streak that saw their overall record move to 8-4. They began SEC play with a 4-0 record after wins against Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M and LSU. Georgia was the only other undefeated team in league play with a 3-0 record when the season was lost due to the pandemic.
Both Mia Horvit and Silvia Chinellato elected to use the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA to play one more season after their senior years were cut short by COVID-19. Horvit is a two-time All-American and has been a member of the All-SEC Team three years in a row. She was named the UTR/ITA National Player of the Week just days before the 2020 season was postponed and later canceled. Chinellato was off to a hot start in SEC play last season with a 4-0 singles record and a 3-1 mark for doubles. She was ranked as high as No. 12 in the nation for doubles alongside Emma Shelton last spring.
Since the SEC began crowning a regular-season and tournament champion in 2000, only four teams have won the SEC Tournament. South Carolina became the fourth in 2019, joining Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt as the only teams to win the event.
South Carolina has won 20 or more matches each of the past three full seasons, a first in school history. In total, the Gamecocks won 64 matches from 2017 to 2019.
Consistency is the name of the game, and South Carolina has certainly been one of the most consistent programs in the country for decades. Currently, the Gamecocks have made the NCAA Tournament 25 seasons in a row. Overall, South Carolina has competed in 29 of the 38 all-time NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the quarterfinals three times (1982, 2009, 2019) and the round of 16 nine times (1982, 1983, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2009, 2017, 2018, 2019). Carolina has also finished the season ranked among the top-25 a total of 25 times.

About Clemson

The Tigers have a pair of victories this season, defeating Coastal Carolina 6-1 in their season-opener Jan. 15, and then scored a win over College of Charleston by the same count two days later. Clemson competed in the Florida State Invitational last weekend, taking on players from FSU and Georgia. Clemson is under the direction of first-year head coach Christy Lynch, who is just the fourth head coach in the program’s 46-year history. Lynch succeeded Nancy Harris, who retired after 23 seasons at the helm of Clemson.

The Clemson Series

South Carolina currently has a six-match unbeaten streak against the Tigers and now leads the all-time series with its biggest rival by a slim 29-27 margin. Clemson’s last win in the series came on its home courts in 2015 by a 5-2 score. The Gamecocks’ six-match win streak is tied for its longest in the series, as they won six in a row from 1997 to 2002 as well. Prior to its six-match win streak, the Tigers had won three in a row and eight of nine over the Gamecocks from 2007 to 2015. Clemson owns a 15-10 edge on the Gamecocks when playing in Clemson, S.C. The two teams played each other every season beginning with the 1975-76 campaign through 1986-87. South Carolina and Clemson did not play each other in 1987-88 or 1988-89 but have since played each season starting in 1989-90.

Full Clemson Series Results

About Virginia

Virginia kicked off its season competing in the UNC Invitational over Jan. 16-17, taking on a tough field of players from North Carolina, Duke and NC State. The Cavaliers are 1-1 on the year after opening the season with a 4-1 win over Tennessee in Columbus, Ohio, at the ITA Kickoff Weekend. Virginia then suffered a 4-2 loss to host and then-No. 13 Ohio State in the championship match. The Cavaliers are led by head coach Sara O’Leary, who is now in her fourth year with the program after serving as the head coach at Davidson for three seasons.

The Virginia Series

South Carolina has a 9-3 record against the Cavaliers and has won four in a row in the series. The two teams last played in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2019 when the Gamecocks hosted the first three rounds of the postseason. South Carolina won that matchup as well as the 2018 contest that also came in the second round of the NCAAs in Columbia. In 2015, the two teams played twice with both matches occurring in Charlottesville, Va. The Gamecocks lost the regular-season matchup by a 5-2 margin and then fell in the second round of the NCAA Tournament 4-2. South Carolina has a 2-3 record against Virginia in Charlottesville.

Full Virginia Series Results