Women's Tennis: Lord Jeffs have up and down week

The Jeffs came out strong against the Jumbos, dominating both singles and doubles play. In the top singles flight, co-captain Stephanie Fong ’02 delivered a victory when her opponent retired in the second set with an injury.

In the second singles spot, Rachel Holt ’05 continued her dominating play, with a straight-set victory over Tufts’ Katie Nordstrom. Co-captain Heather Cole ’02 followed suit in the third singles slot with a two-set win of her own.

The lower half of the singles ladder brought the best matches of the day, even though the Jeffs fell in two of the three. Wallis Molchen ’04 took the first set of her fourth singles match, but she then stumbled in the second set. Molchen blanked her opponent in the third set, taking home the win. In the fifth singles slot Tristan Hedrick ’05 also went to three sets, but was unable to pull out the win. Hedrick fell 5-7 in both the first and third sets, but she was able to trounce her opponent 6-0 in the second set.

In the sixth singles slot, Roopali Agarwal ’03 fell in a two set match.

The play of the doubles teams was also encouraging, as the Jeffs took all three doubles matches, without really being challenged in any of them. Fong and Cole teamed for the victory at first doubles, Agarwal and Holt took the win in the second slot, and Hedrick and Molchen secured the third point with a win at the final doubles slot.

Although the midweek match against Tufts was a key match, it was the NESCAC Championships held over the weekend that was the focus of the week. The NESCAC Championships is an individual tournament that crowns three singles players and three doubles teams NESCAC Champions, and it awards a team title as well, but the tournament does not pit teams against each other.

Unfortunately, the Jeffs finished in sixth place in the tournament won by Williams College.

“The team was extremely disappointed with the results from NESCACs,” said Fong. “We just suffered from way too many first round losses which really hurt us in the total score.”

The Jeffs’ top two performances on the weekend came from their top two singles players, Fong and Holt. The Championships only includes three individual brackets, so Fong and Holt both played in the top bracket, where they each made the semifinals.

Fong had the easier road to the semis, after receiving a first round bye, but her second round match proved to be difficult. Fong had to win tiebreakers in the first two sets in order to take home her victory, but in the next round she cruised to an easy two set win. In the semis she fell to Diana Goldman of Trinity College, the eventual runner-up.

Holt had to play a first round match, but she breezed to a 6-0, 6-2 win. The second round proved to be troublesome as well, as she had to go to the three set limit in order to beat Kate Nordstrom of Tufts, whom she had already beaten earlier in the week. Holt followed Fong’s lead and breezed in her quarterfinal match, but in the semifinals she fell to Selma Kikic of Williams, the eventual champion.

In the third singles bracket, Hedrick made a spirited run towards the title, but her run ended in the semifinals as well.

In doubles play the Jeffs disappointed as well, with only the team of Agarwal and Holt making an extended run. In the second doubles flight they fell in the semifinals to Williams.

“We were disappointed with the results this weekend, as we were expected to finish near the top,” said Cole.

Up next for the Jeffs is a match at Wellesley College this coming weekend, followed by a home date with Williams the weekend after that.