After losing to a tough Williams team last weekend, the women's tennis team rebounded this past Sunday with a big 7-2 win against Middlebury, increasing its record to 4-1.
"This win feels great," coach Jim Watson said. "Rebounding from the loss to Williams I thought we played very well."
Watson's elation can be explained by the sweep of all six singles matches that the Jumbos accomplished on Sunday, as opposed to just two singles wins last week against Williams.
"This match was a real good confidence builder for our team after the loss to Williams," freshman Barclay Gang said.
In the first singles match, sophomore Katie Nordstrom defeated Hilary Johnson 6-1, 6-1. Junior Erika Lee was presented with a bit of a challenge, losing the first set, 6-1, of her second singles match. But Lee was able to regroup, and win a close second set, 7-5, before taking the third set 6-3. In third singles, Gang continued her winning ways, dominating Nina Popel of Middlebury by not giving away a singlegame in her two-set victory. Gang only gave up three service points in the entire match.
In fourth singles, sophomore Iffy Saeed also controlled her opponent with an easy 6-2, 6-1 victory. Sophomore Emily Warshauer won her match in straight sets 6-2, 6-0. In sixth singles, junior Heather Rich had a momentary lapse in the first set, losing 7-5, but she came back into form and was able to complete the sweep by winning the last two sets 6-0, 6-1.
The Jumbos strength in singles has been quite apparent through the first five matches of the fall season; Williams aside, Tufts has not lost a single of its 24 singles matches.
"The singles just speak for themselves," Watson said.
Lee, Saeed, and Rich have all remained unbeaten so far this fall, but Watson emphasizes the overall team effort as essential to success.
"The only matches that the other players lost came from the Williams match and Williams is one of the best teams we will face," Watson said. "The singles are doing really well. What we need to workon is our doubles play."
The play of the Jumbos doubles teams is the only weakness the team has displayed so far this season. In the Middlebury match, the Jumbos dropped the first and third doubles matches, putting them in an early 2-1 hole. The first doubles team, comprised of Nordstrom and Lee, lost 8-1, while the third doubles team of sophomore Rachel Hammerman and junior Daniella Fontecilla was defeated by the same score.
"We seem to get into that position a lot," Rich said. "We weren't worried, though because we know that we have a good team and we have confidence in our singles. We've won before afterbeing down two to one so we are used to it."
Watson remains troubled, however, about the problems that the team is having in doubles.
"I just don't understand it," Watson said. "Our first doubles team goes out against Williams, one of our toughest opponents, and wins. Then they come out against Middlebury and aren't even in the ballpark, losing 8-1."
The only doubles team that seems to be doing well so far this fall is that of Gang and Warshauer, who took their match on Sunday, convincingly, 8-2.
"It seems like we go into every match down 2-1," Watson said. "When we should be going into the match up 3-0 or 2-1."
The less than perfect play of the doubles teams is not something that coach Watson is just discovering, having worked on it with his team all season long.
"Doubles is all I worked on with the team this week," the coach said. "I'm just trying to keep it to the basics. Our problem is that we just aren't executing the basics. It is frustrating because we work more on doubles than on singles yet we are better at singles."
"I think we need to be more aggressive in doubles," Rich said. "We need to win more points at thenet."
You can be sure that Tufts will be working hard on doubles again this week, with tough matches against MIT and Bowdoin coming up.
"MIT seems to be beating everybody," Watson said. "They beat Colby 7-2, which is the same score that we beat Colby. MIT is definitely going to be good, so we can't take them lightly."
Watson described the Bowdoin match as "scary" because the Jumbos will be without one oftheir key players, Gang. The freshman, who has excelled in both singles and doubles for Tufts, will be traveling back home to Miami, Florida to meet with her wrist specialist. Gang has torn ligaments in her wrist from an injury sustained while playing tennis in high school.
Watson hopes that the depth of his team will be able to make up for the absence of Gang, but he is still worried.
"Right now Barclay is irreplaceable," Watson said.
The match against UConn that is scheduled for today has been rescheduled for some time in mid-October. MIT will be visiting the Voute Courts on Thursday and Tufts will travel to Bowdoin on Saturday.
