With two wins under their sweatbands, the members of the women’s tennis team took their momentum and used it to blow through their opponents from the Garden State.

The Elis swept Seton Hall, 7-0, Friday at the Cullman Courts to start the year 3-0. Although the Bulldogs dropped the No. 3 doubles, they won the other two to pick up the doubles point. After that, they only lost a single set as No. 1 singles player Reshmi Srinath ’05 fought back to beat the Pirates’ Viviana Figueroa 4-6, 6-1, 10-5.

Srinath pulled her hamstring during the match on Friday and had to play through it against a strong opponent.

“[Figueroa] was definitely really good,” she said. “Every match has been really tough and a challenge, but it’s been fun for me.”

After dropping the first set, Srinath said the second could have gone either way, but Figueroa’s aggression started turning into mistakes.

“I started wearing her down, so it was pretty easy,” Srinath said. “She had a lot more errors. By the end of second set the match was already decided, so our coach told us just to play a super tie-break to 10. For me it’s sort of tough with a player who was streaky like that, but I just stayed focused and pulled it out.”

The other Bulldogs had little trouble in singles play against the Pirates. No. 2 Rashmee Patil ’07 defeated Ebru Burduroglu, 6-4, 6-1; No. 3 Christine Alford ’07 topped Nadja Sein 6-3, 6-4; No. 4 Aimee Kim ’07 routed Lorell Zamot, 6-3, 6-3; No. 5 Stephanie White ’05 crushed Catalina Isaza, 6-1, 6-2; and No. 6 Olivia Nix ’07 bested Iva Gyurgina 6-2, 6-1.

Srinath also had to come back after losing her doubles match with her partner Lindsey Dashiell ’08. Srinath said the 9-7 loss was partly caused by the fact that she and Dashiell had never played together before Friday.

“We were a little nervous to start with, and it was only [Dashiell’s] second match,” Srinath said. “The team we played was very streaky. We were up 7-4, and ended up losing 9-7. We should’ve won, but we got a little hesitant in the end.”

White, the team captain. said the Elis, most recently ranked 73rd in the nation, have gained confidence from the momentum they have generated so early in the spring.

“Things are feeling good and we are keeping our streak,” White said. “We have been practicing hard and the team is getting along really well.”

White played at No. 2 doubles with Nix and No. 5 singles, winning both. Nix and White narrowly won 8-6 while White took her singles match easily 6-1, 6-2.

“[The Pirates] were a scrappy team,” White said. “We did a good job to beat them so easily. They had potential to come back, but we really focused well and put them out before they had a chance to do anything.”

Alford said it has been a great start to the season.

“One of the team’s goals is to go into spring break undefeated and so far we are on top of that,” Alford said. “We have two big matches this weekend, particularly against Penn State, and if we can win it will be a good step for team. We all have a lot of confidence in each other.”

The Bulldogs will travel this weekend to University Park, Pa. to take on Kansas and Penn State. Since the Elis beat the Nittany Lions last year, White said the Lions will be gunning for the Bulldogs.

“We’re going in confident,” White said. “I personally think we should win, but they are going to be good solid competition. We wouldn’t travel that far if they weren’t good. Hopefully we will come out on top.”

[ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”16393″ ]