The women’s tennis team concluded its fall season with a successful weekend at the Dartmouth Invitational. At the invitational, captain Stephanie Kent ’12 and Sarah Guzick ’13 from Yale teamed up with players from Dartmouth to compete against the University of Massachusetts, St. John’s University and Boston University. Kent and Guzick both finished the three-day Invitational with 2–1 records in singles and combined in doubles to finish 1-1.
Under normal circumstances, Yale tennis would compete against, rather than with, players from Dartmouth.
“It’s definitely very unique for teams to combine,” Guzick said in an email to the News. “It was a very strange experience to be cheering for a different team and to be cheering for people I don’t know.”
For most of the tennis team, the fall season concluded in mid-October at ITA Regionals, where Yale had two doubles teams in the semifinal matches and three individuals in the singles quarterfinal matches. Kent and Guzick were the only two team members to compete at the Dartmouth Invitational. Guzick said that the tournament allowed both her and Kent to gain more experience through additional match play.
Kent had a successful weekend, competing at times in the number one singles position and winning her matches on both Friday and Sunday in two sets. Guzick also had a strong showing this weekend, winning her singles match in two sets on Friday. In doubles, Kent and Guzick bounced back from their narrow 5–6 defeat against UMass on Friday to defeat St. John’s 8–2 on Saturday.
Guzick — who just re-joined the team in early October after quitting her freshman year — told the News that the Dartmouth Invitational was a “big opportunity” to see how much she had improved since her last matches at the USTA Invitational in early October.
“I didn’t think there would be a big discrepancy between my game in practice and my game in matches,” Guzick said. “I learned that I definitely need to play more matches to get ready for the spring.”
Guzick defeated her competition in two sets on Friday and three sets on Sunday.
With the conclusion of the fall season, women’s tennis now moves into winter training in preparation for the competitive spring season. Whereas the fall season is focused on individual play, the spring season is about the overall team results.
“The fall is a good season to identify our own personal strengths and weaknesses as players so that we can work on these over the winter for betterment of the team in the spring,” Vicki Brook ’12 said in an email to the News.
Blair Seideman ’14, added that the coming weeks of the winter season will be essential to a successful spring as the team works to build upon the strength and fitness it gained throughout the fall. (Seideman is a staff photographer for the News)
Yale women’s tennis will be back in action at the Bulldog Kickoff January 20–22 for a tournamnt against Purdue, Tulsa and Auburn. The Bulldogs will look to build on the successes of their 2010-’11 season when they earned their second NCAA berth, won their sixth Ivy League championship title and their third straight ECAC Indoor Championship.