The Syracuse Orange women’s tennis season wrapped up a couple weeks ago with a second round NCAA Tournament loss to Stanford. However, the NCAA also hosts singles and doubles championships for the top individual performers in the country. Among the best was Syracuse’s Gabriela Knutson, who was ranked eighth overall but fell to Washington’s Stacey Fung (No. 20) on Monday morning.
After an impressive career that saw her bring new attention and interest to the Orange program, it was obviously less-than-ideal to see the senior lose so early. Seeded 25th last year, she marched all the way to the Sweet 16 before falling to Vanderbilt’s Astra Sharma. This time around, she fell in two straight 6-2 losses in round one.
Knutson, native of the Czech Republic, was first-team All-ACC this year after going 15-7 in singles play. She was 8-5 vs. ranked foes and scored two wins over top-five opponents on the season. With her college career wrapped up, she’ll finish second in singles wins in Syracuse history to Jana Strnadova, who had 202 from 1992-96.
Congrats to Gabriela on a fine season and career. Syracuse tennis has a lot to replace come next season, but like most of the Orange’s non-revenue sports in the last decade, the recent uptick could mean more success is still to come.