After a five-month layoff, the women’s tennis team is ready to recommence its season. The Cardinals will travel to Orlando, Fla. over spring break before returning home and resuming their NESCAC schedule. The team currently sits at 2-3 overall and 1-1 in the NESCAC.
During the 2005-06 season, freshmen comprised five of the team’s seven members and filled four of the six starting positions. The team finished 11-4, including 7-0 in the spring, but was edged out by Tufts for the sixth and final spot in the NESCAC tournament. This past fall, freshman Anika Fischer ’10 filled the number-four singles and number-one doubles spots, and Alex Sirois ’09 teamed with fellow sophomore Ania Preneta ’09 at the number-three doubles position. Captain Tori Santoro ’07 played at the sixth singles position, and sophomores Preneta (number one singles), Madalina Ursu ’09 (number two single, number one doubles), and Rachael Ghorbani ’09 (number three singles, number two doubles), all of whom started as freshmen, rounded out the ladder. The three sophomores combined to go 12-10 in singles matches during the fall, and Fischer, after losing her first three matches, won three of her last four.
Unfortunately, the team has been beset by what Fischer refers to as “a series of really bad events.” Emily Fish ’09 elected to take the spring semester off, and Sirois broke her foot over winter break, forcing the Cardinals to enter the spring season with an eight-person roster. Over the weekend, Santoro broke her collarbone and will be out for the season. According to Fischer, the loss of Santoro is particularly devastating.
“[Santoro] was the leader of the team,” Fischer said. “It’s going to be really tough to pull the team together when she’s not there. It’s going to take a lot of team effort, and we’re really going to be counting on each other. It’s undoubtedly going to be tough.”
The season now falls on the shoulders of the underclassmen, including the team’s three freshmen, Fischer, Meredith Holmes ’10, and Casey Simchik ’10. While last year’s freshmen performed exceptionally well, Fischer doesn’t believe this year’s class will feel burdened by the past.
“I don’t feel any pressure [to live up to] last year,” Fischer said. “I don’t think it’s on the shoulders of the freshmen to carry the team at all the pressure is divided.”
This year, the Cardinals are determined to qualify for the NESCAC tournament after failing to do so a year ago.
“I think we can make the NESCACs,” Fischer added. “We had a tough match in the fall [against Connecticut College] that may cost us [a berth], but if we can pull together, we can do it.”
Last fall, the team lost a heartbreaker 5-4 to Connecticut College, one of the most experienced teams in the country, and also fell 5-4 to Wellesley, ranked 23rd in the country. Wesleyan ended its fall season with the New England Division III Tournament at Amherst. The Cardinals went 6-9 overall, but Fischer and Fish, playing the third and fourth positions, respectively, both scored big wins. Additionally, Sirois, playing number six, won her first two matches—losing only five games in the process—before bowing out in the third.
The Cardinals will open their spring season on March 11 against the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. After five more Florida matches, Wesleyan returns to NESCAC play at Little Three rival Amherst on March 28.