After falling to the University of Pennsylvania, 5-2, Friday in its Ivy League opener, the women’s tennis team quickly rebounded to defeat Princeton, 5-2, Saturday.
The Elis (10-4, 1-1 Ivy), who entered the weekend on the heels of a 7-0 thrashing of Boston University March 25, struggled early on against the Quakers (8-5, 2-1), dropping all three doubles matches. Aimee Kim ’07 and Rashmee Patil ’07 fell to Penn’s Shelah Chao and Julia Koulbitskaya, 8-3, and Stephanie White ’05 and Christine Alford ’07 lost to Raluca Ciochina and Michelle Mitchell, 8-4. Reshmi Srinath ’05 and Lindsay Dashiell ’08 similarly had trouble and suffered a 8-2 defeat to Kate Williams and Caroline Stanislawski.
The Bulldogs did not fare much better in singles play, as the Quakers took four of the six matches.
The two bright spots for the Bulldogs were Srinath and Patil, who both prevailed in straight sets. No. 1 Srinath was particularly impressive, beating Penn’s Yulia Rivelis, 6-4, 6-4, while No. 2 Patil downed Koulbitskaya, 6-1, 7-6.
In reverse fashion from Friday, the Bulldogs came out strong Saturday and won the doubles point. Yale and Princeton (8-7, 2-1) split the first two doubles matches, but Patil and Srinath rallied from a 6-3 deficit to dismiss the Tigers’ Stephanie Berg and Laura Trimble, 9-8.
Led again by the stellar tandem of Srinath and Patil, the Bulldogs won four of their six singles matches. Srinath beat Princeton’s Jessica Siebel, 6-0, 7-5, while Patil topped Darcy Robertson, 6-4, 6-3. Kim and White picked up the other two singles victories.
Srinath thought she played well in her single matches this weekend, especially against Pennsylvania.
“I had to put an extra effort to pull out a win,” she said. “I competed well, fought really hard. Grinding every point, I did pretty well.”
Although the Bulldogs were disappointed that they could not come away with two wins this weekend, they were pleased with their effort, especially against the Tigers.
“We would have liked to come out 2-0, but winning and then coming back to win against Princeton was really good for the team,” Patil said.
Patil said White’s performance Saturday was especially uplifting since the captain has not being feeling well of late.
“It was great to see her relatively healthy and playing solid tennis in her match against Princeton,” Patil said.
The Bulldogs return to action next weekend when they host Cornell and Columbia at the Cullman Courts.