CLAREMONT, Calif. - The second-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team trailed No. 3 Emory 2-0 and 3-1, but
Celestina Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne capped a valiant comeback with a 3-6, 7-6, 6-4 win at No. 6 singles to break a 3-3 tie and give the Athenas a 4-3 win on Saturday at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
With the win, CMS moves to 7-1 on the season, with the only loss indoors to No. 1 Chicago, while Emory slips to 9-2 with the loss.
The match almost never happened, as it was originally scheduled for Friday morning, and then rescheduled to 8:30 a.m. on Saturday due to rain. The courts remained too wet to play early in the morning, and Emory had to change their Saturday flights home in order to accommodate a later start time.
Once they finally got it started, the two teams went back-and-forth in an epic battle that resulted in the hosts emerging with the 4-3 win. The doubles point was tightly contests, as
Rebecca Kong and
Alisha Chulani earned a 6-2 win at No. 1, and the matches at No. 2 and No. 3 were both tied at 5-5. However, the Eagles were able to get the key service breaks they needed and won 7-5 at both lines to take a 1-0 lead into singles.
After Emory took the first singles point, the Athenas battled back with a close straight-set win at No. 4 from Kong (6-3, 7-6), taking the tiebreaker 8-6 to get the Athenas within 2-1 as three other courts went to three sets.
The Eagles went back in front 3-1 with a three-set win at No. 1, but a 6-4, 6-4 win from
Muduo Zhou at No. 5 got the Athenas within 3-2, and CMS was able to pull out two big three-set wins that were decided by the narrowest of margins.
Ella Brissett took the third set 6-4 after she split a pair of tiebreakers with Izzy Antanavicius, prevailing 7-6 (7-0), 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 to get the match even and have it come down to Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne at No. 6.
Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne dropped the first set at No. 6 to Dakota Fordham, and had to hang on for a big tiebreaker win in the second to stay in it, taking it 7-5. She then took the third and decisive set on her serve, placing a forehand winner in the deep right corner on match point to give CMS the win.
The Athenas will look to keep their momentum going with two more big home matches this week, taking on No. 10 Amherst on Wednesday and No. 8 Middlebury on Thursday.
