The Yale women’s tennis team competed in its third tournament of the season this weekend at the USTA Invitational in Flushing Meadows, New York. The Bulldogs won two flights of singles and advanced to the finals in another, and a doubles team reached the finals as well.

Following their first two tournaments, the Bulldogs were confident heading into Flushing Meadows.

“I think we were expecting to do well and we obviously prepared and trained hard enough to be confident going in,” Rhee said. “Also we were better rested than we were going into the last tournament so we thought we would have some good results.”

Several Bulldogs backed up the confidence on the courts and shined in the Big Apple.

Stephanie Kent ’12 beat Farleigh Dickinson’s Julija Korshunova 6–4, 6–1 in the round of 16, defeated Binghamton’s Yulia Smirnova 6–1, 6–3 in the quarterfinals, routed Adi Petrova of Buffalo University 6–0, 6–0 in the semifinals and defeated Harvard’s Sophie Chang 6–3, 6–4 in the finals of Flight C.

Senior Captain Sarah Lederhandler ’10, who was the top seed in Flight F, beat Long Island University’s Taysha Blessington 6–2, 6–2 in the round of 16, cruised past Penn’s Daniella DePaoli 6–3, 6–0 in the quarterfinals, handled fourth-seeded Marisa Schonfeld of Brown 6–3, 6–1 in the semis, and defeated Harvard’s Samantha Gridley 6–2, 6–3 in the finals to win Flight F.

Elizabeth Epstein ’13 fought all the way to the finals of Flight B, defeating St. John’s University’s Ira Aleksona 7–5, 6–3 in the first round, Cornell’s Christina Ordaway 6–2, 6–2 in the second, and Boston College’s Olga Khmylev 6–2, 6–0 in the semifinals before losing to Jordan Jenkins of Liberty.

Lederhandler also teamed up with Jessica Rhee ’10 to make it to the finals of Flight C Doubles, dispatching the doubles teams of Kristen Kohagen and Geraldine Leong from Boston College 8–4, and Noth Carolina State’s third-seeded duo of Tana Illova and Chloe Smith 8–2 before losing in a close match, 9–7, against the top-seeded doubles team, Brown’s Emily Ellis and Kate Sorokko.

The Bulldogs are off for a couple weeks before heading to Philadelphia on October 23rd for the five-day Wilson/ITA East Regional Tournament hosted by Penn.