Six members of the Boston University women’s tennis team traveled across the river to Harvard University this weekend for the ITA East Regional Championship.
Harvard played host to many of the best players in the East representing more than 90 schools. This tournament is considered by many members of the BU team and coaching staff to be one of the most important individual events of the season.
Play began Friday morning with the qualifying round. Unfortunately for the Terriers, this round proved to be a tough go. Freshman Laura Ahmes lost a difficult match, 6-1, 6-0, to Columbia University’s Melissa Nguyen Saturday in the qualifying singles round.
Ahmes was one of three freshmen that qualified for the tournament. BU freshman Zuzana Melicherova was also unable to play due to an injury. This early success of the Terriers’ freshman class is a great sign of things to come for Coach Lesley Sheehan’s squad.
The struggles for the Terriers continued Friday on the doubles side of the tournament. The Alana Marcu and Monica Shepard lost a close match, 8-6, to the team of Alex Arlak and Kerry Meath of Brown University.
However, things turned around for the Terriers during Saturday’s main draw. Junior Lindsey Dynof won her match, 7-6(2), 6-2, over Nada Curcic of Bucknell University. Sunday, Dynof faced Sanela Kunovac of the University of Pennsylvania.
Junior Elena deMendoza breezed through her match with a 6-0, 6-3 win over her opponent. DeMendoza drew a difficult match Sunday against the tournament’s No. 2 seed and defending singles champion Courtney Bergman of Harvard. Despite losing 6-3, 6-0, deMendoza was pleased with her overall performance, saying, “The final score does not reflect how I played. I am happy with the match.”
Dynof and deMendoza teamed up and hoped their success in singles would continue in doubles play as well. In the opening round of 64, Dynof and deMendoza won their match, 8-4, over St. Bonaventure University.
In the ensuing round of 32, deMendoza and Dynof came within match point of moving on to the next round. BU had match point and was unable to capitalize, eventually losing it to the tournament’s No. 5 seeded Harvard team. In the end, the Crimson defeated the Terriers in the tiebreaker after a hard fought match, 9-8(6).
For deMendoza, this weekend was a learning experience. She was able to get an idea of what she wanted to improve on as the season progresses by paying careful attention to her opponents.
“My opponents were doing things that I have been working on,” deMendoza said.
The final round of the tournament will be held on Tuesday at Harvard’s Murr Center. The winners earn the right to attend the National Indoor Championships in November.
Talking about the important spring season, deMendoza confidently stated, “We are ready.”
The Terriers next travel to Dartmouth College for the Dartmouth Invitational the first weekend of November. This is the last test BU has until the end of January when the non-stop action of the spring season begins. The season culminates in May with the NCAA Tournament.