There was a knock at the door.

Miranda Ramirez, then a freshman, had just moved into her apartment in Syracuse. She opened the door for Gabriela Knutson, who had come to check in on the new freshman just hours after flying in from the Czech Republic. Ramirez hadn’t met anyone on her team yet.

“Hi, I’m Gabby, how are you?” Knutson asked excitedly, as she walked through the doorway. They sat and talked for about an hour or so, Ramirez recalls.

There was not an instant opportunity for a bond between the two to manifest itself. Even without doubles, the pair became close on the court, in part because of similarities: Knutson is half-American and Ramirez is the only American on the team. It allows them to share humor that their teammates sometimes don’t understand, Knutson said.

But once put together in doubles, Knutson and Ramirez became one of the most successful pairings in Orange history. The two, currently ranked No. 56 in the nation, ended last season in the top-10 and earned the first doubles All-American honors in program history.  This season, however, the pair has struggled and entered the spring season unranked after a rough fall season. They’re 12-9 overall and 6-7 in conference play this season, and the Orange have not won a doubles point since March 15.

Now, the duo has one last chance to make a run in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and then potentially in nationals for No. 31 Syracuse (12-11, 5-9 ACC), starting with No. 8-seed Georgia Tech.

“She’s my best friend,” Ramirez said. “She’s my favorite doubles partner that I’ve ever had. It’s going to be tough losing her.”

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As a freshman, Knutson believed she had already found her perfect doubles partner: Valeria Salazar. They became the first Syracuse doubles pairing since 1996 to reach the NCAA tournament in 2016 where they lost in the first round. In Knutson’s sophomore year (Salazar’s senior year), the pair rose to No. 7 in the national rankings.

But after their final tournament of that fall, something wasn’t quite right with Salazar’s wrist — it kept her out of play for Syracuse’s opener against Yale on Jan. 21, 2017. Ramirez slotted in as Knutson’s partner and the two lost, but won the next day against Columbia. In the following two matches against Mississippi State and Denver’s No. 5 and No. 13 ranked pairs respectively, Mesh was placed in for Ramirez and the SU pair lost both times.

Salazar returned to doubles action after, and her and Knutson were upset by an unranked Virginia pair. Four days later, SU head coach Younes Limam announced Salazar was playing through a lot of pain and would undergo season-ending wrist surgery.

“We just have to adjust to kind of find out our doubles partners,” Knutson said in 2017 while Salazar was injured, “and who each person fits with kind of best and just make it work.”

After some initial lineup tinkering, it was apparent that Ramirez could be more than a temporary fix. The pair of Knutson and Ramirez played the last 15 matches of the 2017 season together, going 7-6 including a 6-2 win over Duke’s No. 36 pairing.

And in 2018, they got better. The pair went 16-7 with wins over seven ranked opponents, including the No. 1 pair in the nation from Georgia Tech in a dominant 6-2 win. Later that season, the pair advanced to the round of 16 of the NCAA tournament where they fell in a third set super tiebreak to an Oklahoma State duo.

“She was thinking that she was never going to be that good with Miranda as with Valeria,” Ilona Knutson, Gabriela’s mother said. “But really, they succeeded very well … She really likes Miranda, big time.”

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Knutson said last week her health might be one of the reasons for their struggles. Between laryngitis and colds, she said she’s had “one, max two weeks” of fully being healthy. More recently, her right arm was bothering her in an April 5 match against Pittsburgh where she was rested in singles.

But Ramirez said she feels they haven’t played much differently — never feeling like they’ve been run off the court. Associate head coach Shelley George said splitting them up was never more than a hypothetical.

“I mean, you have to understand the ACC, the teams that we’re playing are the very best in Division I collegiate tennis,” George said. “As long as they’re competing hard and going for the W every time, there’s nothing guaranteed. They’re doing all the right stuff, it’s just a point here and a point there.”

When the season does end, Syracuse will have to replace a historic doubles pair once Knutson, who competed in two top-10 doubles pairings, graduates. But Ramirez will try to pass down what Knutson taught her to start the cycle again.

“I’m going to welcome in the freshmen the same way [Knutson] did for me,” Ramirez said. “I’m going to try to be that support system, that friend. Whatever they need.”

Staff writer Andrew Crane contributed additional reporting.

Published on April 15, 2019 at 10:17 pm

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