While some Yale teams have gone cold during the ugly New Haven winter, the women’s tennis team seems to be in no hurry to end its hot streak.
The Elis (6-0, 0-0 Ivy) continued their unbeaten streak with a 5-2 home victory over Boston College Friday. Not only did the win keep the Bulldogs undefeated in 2005, this weekend’s match held special value after last year, when the Elis traveled up to Boston and got manhandled by the then No. 42 Eagles, 7-0.
“This year we simply played a lot better,” captain Stephanie White ’05 said. “We are also a better team than last year, because in general everyone is playing better than they were a year ago.”
The match began sourly for the Elis, with the trio of Yale doubles teams failing to capture the doubles point. While the No. 1 team of Christine Alford ’07 and Aimee Kim ’07 had an easy time with their opponents, winning 8-2, the No. 3 team of Reshmi Srinath ’05 and Rashmee Patil ’07 fell by the same score.
It came down to the second-seeded matchup between Yale’s Olivia Nix ’07 and White and BC’s Szivia Szegedi and Lindsey Nash. Overcoming errors early on, the Eli duo tied the match at seven games apiece, but lost the last two games to go down by the final score of 9-7.
If the Bulldogs were shaken by losing the point, they did an exceptional job of hiding it, as three Elis who dropped their doubles matches managed to defeat their Eagle opponents in nearly flawless fashion.
White had the easiest time of all, topping BC’s Caitlin Arnould 6-1, 6-1 at the fifth spot. No. 2 Patil took her match, 6-1, 6-2, and six-seed Nix had the mirror-image result, winning 6-2, 6-1.
The Eagles gained some ground at the fourth spot, with Nash beating Alford, 6-4, 6-1, but Kim quickly closed the door on BC rally aspirations. Despite moving up to play in the third spot this weekend, the sophomore extended her unbeaten streak to nine matches with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Morgan Landes.
Kim is 11-for-12 overall this winter, and is still undefeated in singles. Her only loss in 2005 came in doubles against DePaul Feb. 7.
In the most hotly contested singles bout of the afternoon, first-seed Srinath took the opening set of her match against Szegedi and then managed to fend off three set points in the second-set tiebreaker to finish off the Eagle in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6 (6).
While some of the Elis wrapped their matches up faster than others Friday afternoon, the Bulldogs said the chief reason for the win was strong team play.
“Everybody stepped it up and played well on Friday,” Kim said. “We played to win, and it showed.”
The Bulldogs next embark on a four-game road trip over spring break. The toughest competition the Elis will face will probably come from No. 36 Rice.
The Yale squad is feeling confident after taking its sixth-straight contest, but the Bulldogs said they have no intention of letting up.
“You can never take it easy,” Kim said. “Good wins make you a target for other teams. There are always things we can improve and work on, even when things are going well.”