The Case Western Reserve University women's tennis team defeated Kenyon College, one of the top teams in the country, 6-3 on Saturday evening at the Mayfield Village Racquet Club in Mayfield, Ohio.
The Spartans improve to 3-0 with the win, while the Ladies drop to 1-1.
CWRU took two of the three doubles matches, winning at second and third doubles. At second doubles, first-year Madeleine Eiss and junior Nina Hoog defeated Victoria Vasquez and Anna Winslow 8-4. The duo opened a 4-0 lead and did not relinquish it for the rest of the match. Junior Savannah Bright and first-year Radha Patel took the third doubles match 8-5 over Erika Pontillo and Lalasa Nagireddy. Through the first eight points, the two teams were even with neither holding more than a two-point edge. However, Bright and Patel took the next four of the next five points to win the match.
At first doubles, the duo of first-years Lily McCloskey and Hannah Kassaie fell in tiebreakers to Eleni Dakos and Dara Beshentseva 7-8 (5-6). The Spartans led 5-2, but lost five of the next six points to trail 7-6. Facing a loss, McCloskey and Kassaie took the next point to force tiebreakers, but they could not overcome the Kenyon pair and dropped the hard-fought match.
The Spartans took the first four singles matches to clinch the win. Sophomore Pallavi Goculdas started out with a 6-1, 6-3 win at sixth singles over Catriona MacIntosh.
Kassaie, the 19th-ranked singles player in Division III, bounced back with a 6-3, 6-2 win at first singles over Vasquez, the 23rd-ranked singles player. Patel, playing at fifth singles, clinched the match for Case Western Reserve with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Winslow. Eiss followed with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Nagireddy at fourth singles.
McCloskey fell to Beshentseva at second singles 4-6, 2-6, and Bright closed the match with a hard-fought 1-6, 7-5, 0-1 loss to Dakos at third singles.
The Spartans will be traveling to Meadville, Pennsylvania to take on Allegheny College on Saturday, February 19 with action slated to start at 7:00 p.m.
