Women's tennis slams home victories

The Columbia women’s tennis team recovered from a loss to St. John’s last week, recording impressive victories in back-to-back home matches this weekend against Stony Brook and Fairleigh Dickinson. Columbia defeated Stony Brook 5-2 and achieved an outstanding 6-1 win against FDU.

In the first match of the weekend, Columbia battled Stony Brook in a relentless fight for doubles points in which the Lions ultimately won. Freshman Nicole Bartnik and senior Carling Donovan took an 8-6 win at the No. 1 spot, beating the Seawolves’ Gayatri Krishnan and Anna Pieschl. Despite an 8-5 loss in the No. 2 spot by freshman Chelsea Davis and junior Natasha Makarova, the Lions snagged the doubles points with another 8-6 win by No. 3 singles player junior Natalia Christenson and freshman Diana Shapoval. Every doubles match was nail-bitingly close, but the Lions finished ahead, giving them an early 1-0 lead in the match overall.

After securing the doubles point, the Lions continued to impress, taking wins in the No. 1 through No. 4 spots for singles. Bartnik won the No. 1 spot easily against the higher-ranked Katherine Hanson, winning both sets with scores of 6-0 and 6-2. Columbia enjoyed this lead for a brief period until Light Blue players Shapoval and Christenson had losses in the No. 5 and No. 6 spots, which tied up the overall score at 2-2. From there, the score improved in Columbia’s favor. Makarova fought to win in the No. 2 spot against Paola Rodolfi, 7-5, 6-3. Davis finished off her opponent in the second set, beating Krishnan, 6-4, 7-6. Columbia knew it had won the match, but crowded around the No. 4 match to watch Donovan compete. Donovan overcame a first set loss to win inspirationally against Aylin Mehter. Donovan beat Mehter by scores of 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 to give Columbia the win with a 5-2 final match score.

The next day, Columbia took on FDU and crushed them with an overall score of 6-1. In doubles play, Christenson and Shapoval won in the No. 3 spot by a score of 8-2 in a seemingly effortless match. Their win was the first of many other victories. Davis and Makarova beat FDU’s Julia Prantl and Egzona Morina 8-6 in the No. 2 spot. FDU could not take the doubles points though, despite their win in the No. 1 spot as Bartnik and Donovan were defeated in a close match 8-6.

Knowing the match would be a tough one, Columbia worked hard in its singles matches. Makarova took the first win of the day, flattening her opponent with a score of 6-2, 6-0. Her match would be the only two-set of the series as the rest of the matches were hard-fought three-sets. After winning in the first set, Bartnik dropped the second set at No. 1, but rallied in the third in emphatic fashion to win 6-4, 4-6, 6-0. Davis defeated her opponent after a first-set loss to beat Knights’ Prantl 3-6, 7-5, 10-8. Donovan, with her second comeback of the weekend, defeated her opponent after a close loss during her first set to win at No. 4, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3. Shapoval then beat Ksenia Chernyshova in the No. 5 spot, winning 6-7, 6-2, 6-1. Columbia had already won, but Caroline Constable worked to come back from a first-set loss of 6-1. Though Constable took the second set 6-4, she was unable to finish the match on top and dropped her third set, 6-4.

Though the Lions came out boasting a score of 6-1, the match against FDU was a particularly tough one.

“Overall, the match was a lot closer than the 6-1 score indicates. Many of the singles matches went 3 sets and our team fought hard to finish it out,” head coach Ilene Weintraub said after the match.

Ready to build on their momentum from their victories this weekend, the Lions will hit the road next week to Cambridge, Mass. for the ECAC Championships where they will face many of their Ivy rivals before conference competition.