The Boston University women’s tennis team started off their season at the Harvard Fall Classic in Cambridge at the Beren Tennis Center this past weekend. Two Terriers reached the finals, while others finished with up and down results.
The tournament featured players from Harvard University, Boston College, BU and the University of Texas-San Antonio, competing in both individual and doubles matches.
‘This was our first tournament and we actually only started on Monday, so we got right into it, which is good,’ BU coach Lesley Sheehan said.
In the first round of the Flight A singles matches, the BU girls started off a little rocky, but eventually came into their own as the day progressed. One sophomore, Stephanie Nunic, made it all the way to the final round where she then lost to a Harvard freshman Hideko Tachibana, 6-4, 6-0.
In Flight B, senior Liz Corrao was also a finalist, but in the end, she too lost to a Harvard player, Alex Lehman, 6-1, 6-2.
In the first doubles round, sophomore Monika Mical and Corrao lost to Harvard’s Tachibana and junior Samantha Rosekrans, 9-8, but sophomore Petra Santini and freshman Jessica Linero were able to defeat another Harvard doubles team made up by freshmen Sophie Chang and Kristin Norton, 8-6.
In the second round, Nunic and senior Francine Whu lost to a Harvard pair, 8-3, while Santini and Linero once again came out on top, this time against UTSA sophomore Micaela Silva and freshman Sarah Adams, 8-6. Santini and Linero then moved on to the third-place consolation match, where they defeated Harvard, 8-6.
‘All three doubles were in the same flight, and we had some wins, but we didn’t make it to the finals,’ Sheehan said. ‘Overall it was our first tournament and I thought the team played well. Right now we’re just trying to see who are doubles teams will be. Our traditional season is in the spring, so what we’re doing in the fall is trying to get our line-up set.’
Sheehan also hopes to get some playing time in for freshman Vivien Laszloffy next week, who wasn’t able to compete in the tournament because of complications with the NCAA.
‘Everyone was trying really hard and everyone was trying to win,’ junior Vanessa Steiner said. ‘We’ve only had a week of practice so we were just trying to get back into the rhythm of things. And it was tough because Jesse [Linero] is a freshman and Monika [Mical] is a transfer, so it was their first week playing on the team.’
Next weekend at the Brown Invitational in Providence, R.I., Sheehan plans to mix-and-match the doubles teams around to see what works best, and hopefully the team will be able to find pairs that will work well together for future matches in the upcoming spring season.
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