Women’s Tennis
As a team that has reached the third round of the NCAA Championships each of the last three years, women’s tennis is already off to a strong start this season.
After winning four grueling matches at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s (ITA) Regional Championship last weekend, the doubles squad of Emma Chow ’15 and Teresa Trinka ’18 finished in second place out of 32 competitors. The duo, who were ranked No. 2 in the region heading into the weekend, fell to Maria Pylypiv and Rebecca Curran of Williams in an 8-4 decision in the championship match.
Bowdoin’s other women’s doubles team, comprised of Corinne Alini ’18 and Samantha Stalder ’17, won a closely contested opening match against a team from Wellesley—requiring tiebreaking sets for Alini and Stalder to move on. In the second round of the tournament they were knocked out by the first-seeded MIT team.
Chow and Trinka, after dominating their first matchup 8-1, faced tough competition from one of Williams’ squads, which they eventually overcame in a tiebreaker, 7-5. They then ousted teams from Wesleyan and Amherst in the next two rounds, with set scores of 8-6 and 8-3, respectively. In the final round, they faced Curran and Pylypiv, who were not even the highest-seeded team from Williams at the tournament.
Curran, a senior, was ranked No. 3 in the nation in doubles last year with a different partner, and Pylypiv was a member of the No. 10 team. Losing 8-4, Chow and Trinka tied for the highest number of games won against the Williams pair at the tournament. In their four games before the final, the Williams duo won their matches 8-3, 8-4, 8-3 and 8-2.
Men’s Tennis
Men’s tennis also had a noteworthy weekend in its ITA Regional Championship, hosted by Middlebury.
In the singles competition, Chase Savage ’16 made it all the way to the quarterfinals before falling to the No. 2 seeded player in New England, Amherst’s Michael Solimano, who would go on to take home the trophy for the weekend.
Savage had a relatively dominant score against his first three opponents, from Trinity, Tufts and Gordon College, respectivley.
Savage beat Brandeis College’s Brian Granoff 6-2, 6-2 in his first match and then followed up that performance with a 6-4, 6-0 win. He reached his top form in his third round match when he dominated Gordon’s Zach Hall 6-0, 6-1.
Hugh Mo ’17 was the only other Polar Bear to win a singles match at the tournament, beating his first opponent 6-1 in two sets before being knocked out by Solimano 6-2, 6-1.
In doubles play, the team had a much less inspiring weekend, even though its two squads both won their opening matches.
Although Savage was predicted to perform better in the doubles draw, he and partner Luke Tercek ’18 were seeded No. 6 in the region, the team only made it to the second round before falling to a squad from Wesleyan.
The team finishes its fall season next week at the Wallach Invitational at Bates.