The women’s tennis team soundly defeated Mount Holyoke College 7-2 on Wednesday to improve its spring record to 4-0. The Cards, who dropped a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to Mount Holyoke earlier in the year, moved one step closer to qualifying for the NESCAC Championships with the win.
Leading the way early on in the match was the second doubles team of Ania Preneta ’09 and Madalina Ursu ’09. Their strategy and solid groundstrokes were too much for the second doubles team from Mount Holyoke, as they prevailed 8-4. Preneta and Ursu both went on to win their singles matches without dropping a game. In doing so, they maintained their individual undefeated singles and doubles records this spring.
“Madalina and Ania played a great doubles match, both of them were so consistent from the baseline, had excellent return games, and knew when to come to the net and end the point,” said captain Suz Ragab’06.
No stranger to success herself, Ragab also swept her two matches on the day, losing only one game along the way. In the third doubles match, Ragab paired with Lizzie Collector ’09 to dominate their opponents in an 8-1 victory. With the match played indoors in the Bacon Field House, which contains only four courts, Ragab had a lengthy break before her singles match. That did little to cool off her game though, as she came out and won the sixth singles match 6-0, 6-0. Emily Fish ’09 also won her singles match handily, winning in the fifth spot 6-0, 6-1.
The first doubles match provided the most thrilling finish of the day as the Mount Holyoke team captured an 8-6 victory over Rachael Ghorbani ’09 and Alex Sirois ’09. After going up 5-2, Ghorbani and Sirois ran into trouble as they dropped the next four games in a row. They showed great resilience though, breaking at 5-6 to even up the match 6-6. Mount Holyoke broke back which allowed them to serve out the match at 7-6. The final game was the most exciting one of the day with the two teams going back and forth, pushing the game to deuce six times. Mount Holyoke finally pulled the victory out after the sixth deuce point.
Following her difficult loss in the first doubles match, Ghorbani then headed into a hard hitting first singles match. She and her impressive opponent from Mount Holyoke exchanged powerful groundstrokes, hitting at higher pace than any other match in the building. Despite a valiant effort, Ghorbani suffered a disappointing 6-1, 6-3 loss. The other half of the Cards’ first doubles team pulled out a gutsy three set victory in her fourth singles match. Sirois, the most emotional player on the courts, took the first set 6-1, but then dropped the second set 4-6. Despite playing more sets than any other member of the team, Sirois was able to clinch the match with a 6-2 victory in the third set. The win improved her individual singles record to 4-0 on the year.
Ragab was clearly impressed with Sirois’ effort.
“Alex made a spectacular effort and dug deep through her third set and pulled out the win,” she said. “I think that what’s great about this team is that they not only want the win for the team score, but they also want their own individual wins. They don’t let down even when someone brings in the fifth match to clinch the team win. Each of these girls takes general enjoyment out of beating their opponent no matter what the overall match score is.”
The women’s tennis team will look to continue their winning streak at home on Sunday when it meets Salve Regina College at 2:30 p.m.
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