CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team led 3-1, but Wesleyan was able to respond with three straight three-set wins to come from behind an earn a 4-3 win over the Athenas in the NCAA Division III Semifinals on Tuesday at the Champions Tennis Center.
The loss was the first that the Athenas have suffered to a Division III team this season, and snaps a 26-match win streak since they fell in their opener to Division I UC Riverside back in January. Wesleyan moves on to the national championship match on Thursday against WashU, which defeated Babson in its semifinal.
Lindsay Eisenman won in both singles and doubles in her final collegiate dual, teaming with a win with
Rebecca Kong at No. 1 doubles, who also won in singles. Wesleyan, though, was able to take the doubles point with wins at No. 2 and No. 3.
Bell Zhou and
Leah Baroudi were able to fight off a match point at No. 3 down 5-3, but Wesleyan was able to get the service hold for the win and the 1-0 lead heading into singles.
Kong had the most dominant singles performance for either team, as she captured a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 2, jumping out to a quick lead in both sets and never letting up. Eisenman finished off a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 1 singles to give CMS a 2-1 advantage. Both sets were tied 3-3, before Eisenman closed with a flourish with three straight wins to get the straight-set victory.
Ananya Sriniketh then gave CMS a 3-1 lead with a 7-5, 7-5 win at No. 3 singles in a match decided by a razor-thin margin. The last five games in the second set were all decided on deuce points, as well as seven of the 12 games in all. Sriniketh was able to win four of the five deuces to close it out, including the last two in a row, to give CMS the 3-1 lead.
Wesleyan was able to close to within 3-2 with a win at No. 6, as Maria Natalia Leroy Garibay was able to win on a deuce point, taking the match 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 over
Celestina Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne.
Zhou and Baroudi then played matches which featured more pressure-packed points. Baroudi was down 3-1 in the third, then won two straight deuce points to get back level at 3-3, before Sarah Youngberg won two straight deuce points to go ahead 5-3. Baroudi had a quick service break at love to get the match to 5-4, but Youngberg was able to break back for the 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 win.
Zhou dropped the first set and won two straight deuce points with the second set tied 4-4 to get the split. Her third set started with four more games that went to deuce, but Mariia Kornilova was able to take three of them, and kept the momentum to clinch the win 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and send the Cardinals through to the finals.
Eisenman, Sriniketh and Kong will play in the upcoming NCAA Division III Singles Championship starting on Friday, and Eisenman and Kong will play in doubles, where they will try to complete a sweep of national titles after winning the ITA Cup in the fall.
