The 20th-ranked Case Western Reserve University women's tennis team earned its first victory of the 2017 season, defeating 34th-ranked Hope College, 6-3, at the Cleveland Skating Club on Friday evening.
The Spartans improved to 1-1 on the year with the win, while Hope dropped to 1-2.
CWRU started off the day strong, taking two of the three doubles matches to open up a 2-1 advantage over Hope. Picking up doubles victories were the pairings of junior Nithya Kanagasegar and sophomore Jessica Liu, who defeated Hope's Nancy Benda and Quincey Glupker 8-5 in the first doubles match, and junior Peyton Young and freshman Kendal Holladay, who picked up an 8-5 win at second doubles over Amanda Bandrowski and Taylor LaBarge. The Spartans lone loss came in the third match, where junior Nina Cepeda and freshman Katie Busch suffered an 8-6 defeat to Claire Hallock and Christian Drozd.
The Spartans went on to win four of the next six single matches. Kanagasegar earned a 6-1, 7-6 (7-1) victory of Benda at first singles, with Cepeda claiming a 6-3, 6-4 victory over LaBarge at fourth singles. In the fifth singles match, Young picked up a 6-2, 7-6 (7-1) victory over Glupker and freshman Katrin Gurvich defeated Natalie Rahrig 6-2, 6-0 in the sixth singles contest.
The Spartans two losses came at second singles, where Bandrowski bested Holladay 6-4, 4-6 and 6-4, and at third singles, where Liu fell to Hallock 3-6, 6-2 and 6-1.
The Spartans will wrap-up the weekend when they play host to Kalamazoo College at the Cleveland Skating Club for a 5:00 p.m. meeting on Saturday, February 18th.
