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Another Active Weekend for Women's Tennis
Portions courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications, Princeton Athletic Communications and Yale Sports Publicity
PRINCETON, N.J. -- It's another active weekend for Ivy women's tennis with seven teams all in action on the courts Oct. 9-11 at the 2010 USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center Women's College Invitational in Flushing, N.Y.
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn and Yale will all have participates in the event held on the courts that annually host final professional grand slam of the season, the U.S. Open.
Princeton will be action with the other seven Ivy teams next weekend at the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championships Oct. 22-26 in Hanover, N.H., hosted by Dartmouth.
A LOOK BACK
The Ivy League had a solid showing at the 2010 ITA/Riviera All-American Championships at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif., with presence in the main draws of both the singles and doubles brackets.
Princeton's Taylor Marable and Hilary Bartlett completed as a duo and Bartlett competed individually and fell in both main-draw matches. The pair, ranked eighth in the preseason, began the 32-team main-draw doubles tournament with an 8-6 loss to Morgan Frank and Nazari Urbina of Texas A&M, the 45th-ranked duo on the ITA's preseason list. In the singles main draw, Bartlett, the 49th-ranked player in the nation in the ITA's preseason rankings, fell to 10th-ranked Nina Secerbegovic of Baylor, 6-4, 6-4. In the consolation bracket, Bartlett and Marable fell 8-3 to Virginia's 12th-ranked doubles team of Lindsey Hardenbergh and Erin Vierra.
Penn freshman Connie Hsu had an excellent performance at the event as just one of qualifiers to advance to the main draw of the singles tournament before falling to 41st-ranked Michaela Kissell of Marshall in her main draw opening match 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-2. Hsu recorded wins over Stanford's Stacey Tan (6-3, 6-1), Clemson's Keri Wong (7-5, 6-3) and Virginia's Emily Fraser (6-4, 6-1) to move into the main draw.
The Yale doubles team of junior Vicky Brook and senior Lindsay Clark also advanced through the qualifying round and lost their opening main-draw match. The No. 37-ranked Bulldog duo fell 8-3 to Notre Dame's Kristy Frilling and Shannon Matthews, currently ranked No. 10 in the nation. In the consolation round, Brook and Clark lost 9-7 to Duke's Mary Clayton and Monica Gorny. The Yale pair had previously won its two matches in qualifying play to advance to the main draw, defeating Ohio State's Kelsey Haviland and Cami Hubbs and Stanford's Tan and Carolyn McVeigh by identical 8-4 scores.
In other action from the qualifying draws, Harvard's top singles player Holly Cao dropped a tough three-set match to North Carolina State's Sanaa Bhambri. Cao took an early lead in the match winning the first set, 6-4. Bhambri would battle back though, taking the second set 6-1. In the decisive third set, each player battled for the win, but Bhambri would break Cao to take the set 6-4, and the match, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Cao and Samantha Rosekrans teammed up in doubles and lost a closely-contested match, 8-5, against Maria Sanchez and Kaitllyn Christian of Southern California.
In pre-qualifying acton, Brown's Maxine Thomas lost to Southern California's Christian in singles while Harvard's Kristen Norton registered two victories in singles and one in doubles with Hideko Tachibana and Tachibana and Yale's Brook in singles and Harvard's Natalie Blosser and Hannah Morrill in doubles lost their opening matches.
At the Saint Joseph's Fall Invitational in Philadelphia, Penn's Rose Schlecker reached the title match in Flight 4 singles draw, losing to Delaware's Sophie Sjoberg-Sundstron 6-2, 6-0. Fellow Quaker Lauren Bridges won two matches in Flight 3 singles before falling Delaware's Olivia Helm 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinals. The third Penn player competing, Ilana Dreyfus, did not pick up a win in her two Flight 2 singles matches.
