Despite their best efforts, the Cardinals enjoyed only one victory this weekend as they faced some of the best players in the region. Wesleyan sent singles players Ania Preneta ’09 and Rachael Ghorbani ’09, along with a doubles team consisting of Ghorbani and Alex Sirois ’09 to compete in this year’s ITA Division III tournament, hosted by MIT. The elite tournament features 64 singles players from 20 regional colleges, including Wesleyan’s NESCAC rivals Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts and Williams.
Preneta showed her strength in her first-round match, a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Brandeis’ Colleen Donnelly, Donnelly’s first singles loss of the fall season. Preneta stumbled in the second round, failing to win a single game and losing in straight sets to Meghan McCooey of Tufts, who was seeded in the 9-16 group and would eventually reach the eighth round.
In her first-round match against Williams’ Nicole Reich, Ghorbani fell 1-6, 2-6. Despite the difficult loss, she went on to show a strong effort in her consolation match to Courtney Farrell of Babson, but dropped the match in two close sets, 5-7, 6-7.
Ghorbani also competed in doubles with Sirois. The tandem faced the dominant Wellesley duo Trish Devine and Jennifer Schwartzkopf in the first round, falling 5-8 to the Blue Pride. Devine and Schwartzkopf were seeded fourth in the tournament and carried their undefeated record all the way to the tournament’s round of eight, where they were defeated by the Williams tandem of Lucy Marchese and Annie Schneidman. Unfortunately, Ghorbani and Sirois were forced to default in the consolation match against Julia Browne and Mari Homma of Tufts.
The team enjoys this week off before returning to dual-match action next Wednesday, October 3rd with a match on the road against Connecticut College. Wesleyan faced the Camels last October, suffering a narrow 5-4 loss in dual-match play. This year the Cardinals, with increased experience, hope to see different results against a Connecticut College team with five freshmen and only two upperclassmen.
Leave a Reply