Shorthanded Women’s Tennis Team Falls to Tufts, but Wins Against Clark
David Chen—The Tech
This past Friday, MIT Women’s tennis suffered a tough loss to Tufts 9-0. The tennis team was down to six players due to sickness and injuries, making for an interesting lineup. They came back to win on Saturday against Clark University.
The doubles matches were first on Friday. Sonya Makhni ’11 and Hillary E. Jenny ’12 were one of the first teams done losing a tough match of 0-8. Next off was the team of Anastasia Vishnevetsky ’12 and Alexandria C. Hall ’12, also losing a tough match 0-8. The final team off hung in there a while longer with long net points, but in the end Kerry R. Weinberg ’10 and Caitlin R. Pomeroy. ’13 lost 1-8. This put MIT down 0-3 in the match scores.
Next up were singles. The general feeling on the court was that everyone was fighting their hardest, but in the end most people fell 0-6, 0-6. Vishnevetsky was the only one to take a game off her opponent 1-6, 0-6.
Despite the loss and the absence of the team’s top two players, MIT went into the Saturday match against Clark full of fire. It was held at the MIT indoor courts due to the rain. First up were the doubles matches. The team of Anisa K. McCree ’10 and Hall were down a break 4-5 on the first court. They broke back to win the game and only lost a game after that, winning 8-6. On court two was the team of Weinberg and Jenny C. Dohlman ’11. With a combination of good communication and domination at the net, the team took the match 8-4. On court three was the team of Makhni and Jenny. The team fought hard, and also took a win of 8-4. In the exhibition match, Pomeroy and Sheena Bhalla ’11 dominated their match, taking it 8-2. This gave MIT a lead of 3-0 over Clark going into the singles matches.
The singles matches were intense, but the team was up to the challenge. McCree played a tough two set match and came out on top, winning 6-3, 7-5. Hall was down 4-5 in the first set, but came back to take it 7-5. She quickly took the second set, winning with a score of 7-5, 6-2. Dohlman had a quick finish in the first set, taking it 6-0. She also quickly took the second set, and only dropping two games won with a score of 6-0, 6-2. Jenny also did well in her match. She took her match 6-1, 6-1. Makhni also breezed through her match winning 6-1, 6-1. Weinberg started out okay, but then she took it to the next level and breezed through her matches as well. Her resulting score was 6-3, 6-0.
In exhibition, Pomeroy won her match with ease, 6-1, 6-0. This left Bhalla front and center. Bhalla lost the close first set in a tie break 6-7(1), but came back to win the second set 6-4, forcing the match into a third set tiebreak. After many grueling rallies, Bhalla took the tiebreak and the match with a score of 6-7(1), 6-4, 10-7, for an official score of 9-0, MIT over Clark.