WOMEN’S TENNIS: Bulldogs rout Midwestern teams
The Yale women’s tennis team trounced Rutgers and Indiana while the men’s tennis team defeated Western Michigan and fell to Wisconsin.
Courtesy of Yale Athletics
This weekend, the Yale women’s tennis team welcomed Rutgers University (4–1, 0–0 Big Ten) and Indiana University (4–2, 0–0 Big Ten) to Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. The men traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where they battled Western Michigan University (3–3, 0–0 Mid American) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (5–1, 0–0 Big Ten).
The women’s team eked out a 4–3 victory over Rutgers on Friday, continuing their winning streak against the Scarlet Knights.
“We all did a really good job of having a lot of high energy and cheering each other on constantly and loudly,” Ann Wright Guerry ’26 said.
All three doubles teams were victorious. Vivian Cheng ’23 and Chelsea Kung ’23 posted a 6–2 victory over Tara Chilton and Mai Nguyen. Rhea Shrivastava ’23 and Jamie Kim ’25 defeated Minchae Kim and Jackeline Lopez 6–2. And Guerry and Sophia Zaslow ’26 beat Amira Badawi and Daira Cardenas 6–2.
Kung, Guerry and Zaslow also posted singles victories against the Scarlet Knights, winning (6–1, 6–4), (6–1, 6–1) and (6–3, 6–3), respectively.
On Saturday, the women took on Indiana, taking revenge after losing their last matchup against the Hoosiers. This time the Elis posted an impressive 4–1 win.
“This weekend was an overall team effort, and we had a solid weekend against two very strong teams,” head coach Rachel Kahan said. “We did a great job especially against Indiana coming out with energy and making adjustments when we needed to.”
Shrivastava and Guerry defeated Hoosiers Mila Mejic and Lauren Lemonds 7–5, but the Hoosiers ultimately gained the doubles point. However, Kung, Guerry, Cheng and Zaslow won singles points for the Blue and White, with scores of (6–2, 6–4), (6–3, 6–4), (6–4, 6–1) and (6–4, 6–2), respectively.
“My highlight this week was winning my Indiana singles match because Indiana is a competitive team and this was a solid win,” Zaslow said.
The men’s team traveled to Wisconsin this weekend, where they took on Western Michigan and Wisconsin. The Bulldogs posted a 5–2 victory over Western Michigan on Friday to kick off their weekend.
“Renaud played fantastic doubles with a new partner (Vignesh) which was a great mental effort,” captain Theo Dean ’24 said. “As a team, the doubles point was a highlight on both days.”
The Blue and White beat the Broncos out for the doubles point, marking wins at lines one and two. Renaud Lefevre ’24 and Vignesh Gogineni ’26 defeated Fynn Lohse and Arjun Honnappa 7–5 while Theo Dean and Aidan Reilly ’25 beat Brogan Pierce and Benjamin George 6–2.
In singles, Dean, Michael Sun ’23, Shervin Dehmoubed ’24 and Walker Oberg ’25 clinched wins of (6–4, 6–3), (6–1, 7–5), (6–4, 5–7, 1–0 (10–7)) and (6–1, 6–3), respectively.
“We had good competitive engagement from everyone, even guys not playing,” Oberg said. “We have room to improve on execution in singles.”
The Blue and White broke their four-match winning streak against the Badgers on Saturday. The Bulldogs’ winning streak included wins against Binghamton University (0–8, 0–0 America East), Fairfield University (0–3, 0–0 Metro Atlantic), Temple University (2–2, 0–0 American) and Western Michigan University.
“I think we succeeded in competing very hard throughout the majority of our lineup each day, and we fought hard to hang in the Wisconsin match when they had gotten ahead of us,” head coach Chris Drake wrote to the News. “We can improve our ability to sustain our focus and level against good teams. We were a bit up and down, but we will get there with more experience at this level.”
The Elis earned the doubles point after Lefevre and Gogineni defeated Gabriel Huber and Michael Minasyan 6–3, and Sun and Dehmoubed beat Robin Parts and Sebastian Vile 7–5. Dean clinched the only singles point for the team, routing Jared Pratt (6–4, 6–3).
“There’s still improvement as we had lapses in focus that led to critical losses,” Gogineni said. “I’m going to mainly focus on my serve during practice as I felt that was a big liability for me this weekend.”
The women will return to competition next weekend in Hanover, New Hampshire at the ECAC Championship. The men will compete in the Championship at Dartmouth College the following weekend.
The women will continue regular season play at the University of South Carolina (1–2, 0–0 SEC) on Feb. 17. The men will resume their regular season play against New Jersey Institute of Technology (4–0, 0–0 American East) on Friday, Mar. 3.