Virginia Tech Hokies women’s tennis team lost to No. 24 Duke with a score of 4-0 on March 29, after being forced to forfeit several matches due to a limited roster.
The result highlights the challenges teams face when competing with fewer athletes than required, which can lead to automatic losses in certain matchups and impact overall performance.
According to the team report, Virginia Tech had only five active student-athletes available, which meant they could field just five singles players and two doubles teams. This led to immediate forfeits on Court 3 doubles and Court 6 singles. Another forfeit occurred on Court 5 when an athlete was pulled prior to the start of singles play.
In doubles action, Mila Mulready and Linda Ziets-Segura played competitively but were defeated by Liv Hovde and Aspen Schuman with a score of 6-3. The No. 44-ranked duo of Arina Gamretkaia and Özlem Uslu were tied at four games each when their match was called off due to the overall match outcome being decided.
Heading into singles play already down by three points because of earlier forfeits, Virginia Tech’s Ziets-Segura lost in straight sets on Court 4, allowing Duke to clinch the victory. Other ongoing matches included Uslu attempting a comeback against No. 19 Irina Balus (with scores standing at 4-6, 6-2, 1-0), Gamretkaia leading her second set (6-4, 3-2), and Mulready trailing her opponent (7-5, 3-1).
Looking ahead, Virginia Tech will travel west for their next matchup against Stanford scheduled for Friday, April 3 at 4:30 p.m.
