The Tufts women's tennis team finished its fall season last weekend with a respectable 9-1 record and a third place finish in the New England Championships. The only two teams ahead of the Jumbos at the championships were Williams and Amherst, with the Lord Jeffs only topping them by two points.
"We were pretty happy with finishing in third place," Junior Heather Rich said. "Third place is better than we did last year." Last year, Tufts finished fourth behind Williams, Amherst, and Trinity. Tufts was actually holding onto second place for almost the entire weekend of the New England Championships until the last day, when Amherst pulled ahead by a mere two points.
The Jumbos accomplished this success with solid singles play all year long, and doubles play that struggled at times but still got the job done. Overall, Tufts gave up a total of only 18 matches compared to the 72 matches that they won.
If one were to label a weakness for the team, it would have to be the inconsistency of the doubles play. Tufts swept the singles matches in many of this years' contests, only to give up one or two doubles matches. Because of the inconsistency, lineups were often switched. In fact, only two combinations of Jumbos played more than three matches together. Even with the apparent trouble with doubles, these three teams all had winning records. The first doubles team of Sophomore Katie Nordstrom and Junior Erika Lee finished the season with a 7-2 record. The second doubles team of freshman Barclay Gang and sophomore Emily Warshauer accumulated a 5-3 record.
"Coach [Jim Watson] was switching some of the doubles teams all the way up until the last match," Rich said. "It was a tough season because we were switching a lot, but I think that we all handled it very well." Watson, who also coaches the men's tennis team at Tufts, tried seven different combinations of players in the third doubles spot, three different combinations in the second doubles spot, and two different combinations in the first doubles spot.
This uncertainty in the doubles teams and subsequent less-than-perfect performances may have contributed somewhat to the Jumbos third place finish at the New England Championships. Tufts had three people in the top two finishers in singles play but did not have a doubles team in the top two finishers in any doubles spot.
Singles play was the Jumbos strength all year long. Tufts only gave up nine out of the total 54 singles matches that they played. Not one Jumbo that played in a singles match had a losing record at the end of the year. Nordstrom, who played first singles most of the time ended her season with a 7-2 record. Lee who usually played second singles ended the season with an undefeated 9-0 record in singles. Gang, the third singles player for the Jumbos, accumulated a 6-2 singles record in her first fall season as a Jumbo. Sophomore Iffy Saeed was one of two players on the team with an undefeated singles record with an impressive 10-0 mark. The Jumbos' fifth singles player, Warshauer, ended her season with a respectable 7-3 singles record. Sophomore Rachel Hammerman and Rich, who each played sixth singles, had 5-1 records at the end of the season. Finally, senior Jen Lai ended her last fall season as a Jumbo with a 1-0 record in singles play.
With a successful fall season behind them, the Jumbos are now looking toward a spring season which will end with the NCAA tournament. "We really pulled together this season," Rich said, "and we are really looking forward to the spring." The Jumbos goal for next spring is to beat Amherst, the team that was just out of their reach this past fall. To do this, however, Tufts is going to have to improve over the winter.
"We really have to train hard and improve our tennis skills so that we can beat Amherst in the spring," Rich said
The Jumbos are on their way to this goal after their successful fall season. "We are very confident as we enter the spring season because we had a great fall," Rich said. "Hopefully we'll carry that through to the spring." Whether they carry it through to the spring remains to be seen, but if the Jumbos continue playing they way they are, they will be a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming season.
