Columbia, Yale Advance to ECAC Indoor Tennis Championship Match

Columbia, Yale Advance to ECAC Indoor Tennis Championship Match

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BRACKET

By Ryan Simmons

NEW YORK, N.Y. – After two days of play at the ECAC Women’s Indoor Tennis Championship two teams are left standing for the title.

No. 3 Yale and No. 4 Columbia will square off for the Championship Sunday at 5 p.m. 

Day 1 on Friday saw the higher seeds win every match, but Saturday’s action saw three upsets in the four matches contested.

The first match of the day was the only one in which the higher seed prevailed as the fifth-seeded Brown Bears defeated the eighth-seeded Cornell Big Red 4-0 to open play.

Brown earned the doubles point, grabbing a pair of victories from Cornell. The pairing of Courtney Kowalksy and Devon Jack beat Valerie Ho and Maria Adiaconitei 6-2, while Julia Newman and Ryan Peus defeated Ashley Huang and Sarah Campbell 6-1. 

The Bears got on the board first in singles play. Newman picked up a win over Cornell’s Campbell, who was forced to retire in the first set, putting Brown just two wins away from taking the match.

Britany Lau defeated Fatima El Ashram 6-0, 6-1 while Peri Sheinin won against Khary Pryce6-3, 6-2 to complete the sweep.

Brown will take on No. 7 Dartmouth in the 5th place match Sunday at 11 a.m., while Cornell will face No. 6 UMass in the 7th place match at 8 a.m.

No. 7 Dartmouth provided the first upset of the tournament, beating No. 6 UMass 4-0 in the day’s second match.

The Big Green grabbed the doubles point with wins from the No. 22 and No. 3 pairings. Allison McCann  and Jingyi Peng earned a 6-1 victory over the UMass pairing of Jovana Bogicevic and Ashley Avery while Catherine Cable and Chidimma Okpara turned in a 6-0 win over Jasmin Tripathy and Sarah Mezini.

In singles play, Dartmouth’s Nina Paripovic turned in a 6-1, 6-0 win over Mezini to open the scoring. Cable defeated UMass’ Martina Bocchi 6-0, 6-1 and Ashley Hess rounded out the match with a Avery, completing the Big Green’s win.

The upsets continued in Saturday’s third match as tournament host and fourth-seed Columbia polished off the tournament’s top seed, Harvard, 4-1.

Columbia took home the doubles point in the contest. The Lions’ top pairing, Akanksha Bhan and Paulina Ferrari knocked off Jenna Friedel and Rachel Eason 6-4. Jennifer Kerr and Shivani Amineni turned in a 6-4 win in the third doubles spot over Harvard’s Mihaela Marculescu and Kayla Leschly.

Kerr turned in the first win in singles play for the Lions, defeating Eason 6-1, 6-3. Haynes overcame Natasha Gonzalez 6-3, 6-3 to put another point in the Columbia column. 

Marculescu got Harvard on the board with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Michelle Xu. However, Melissa Sakar would slam the door on any further comeback attempts as she conquered Sophia Ho 7-5, 6-0.

No. 3 Yale filled the final spot in tomorrow’s championship by handing No. 2 Penn a 4-1 loss in the day’s final match.

The Bulldogs captured the doubles point to open the match. The duo of Samantha Martinelli and Jessie Gong defeated Penn’s Iuliia Bryzgalova and Marija Curnic 6-3. Chelsea Kung and Rena Lin beat Sonia Tartakovsy and Amanda Chan 6-4.

In singles, Yale’s Kung turned in a 6-3, 6-0 win over the Quakers’ Ashley Zhu, but Penn would rally for a point of its own behind a 6-4, 6-4 victory from Bryzgalova over Martinelli.

From there, however, it was all Bulldogs. 

Rhea Shrivastava defeated Carolyn Xie 6-4, 6-3 and Rena Lin wrapped things up with a 7-6, 6-0 defeat of Tartakovsky.

The Quakers will challenge Harvard in the 3rd-place match at 2 p.m.



#5 Brown 4, #8 Cornell 0
Doubles
1. Kowalsky/Jack (B) def. Ho/Adiaconitei (C) 6-2
2. Newman/Peus (B) def. Huang/Campbell (C) 6-1
3. Dellacono/Lau (B) vs. Deng/El Ashram (C) DNF (3-4)

Singles
1.Courney Kowalksky (B) vs. Valerie Ho (C) DNF (6-2, 2-6, 4-1)
2. Devon Jack (B) vs. Maria Adiaconitei (C) DNF (6-3, 2-6, 0-0)
3. Britany Lau (B) def. Fatima El Ashram (C) 6-0, 6-1
4. Ryan Peus (B) vs. Michelle Deng (C) DNF (6-4, 3-4)
5. Julia Newman (B) def. Sarah Campbell (C) Retired (5-0)
6. Peri Sheinin (B) def. Khary Pryce (C) 6-3, 6-2

#7 Dartmouth 4, #6 UMass 0
Doubles
1. Napadiy/Bocchi (UM) vs. Conrad/Chiu (D) DNF (3-3)
2. McCann/Peng (D) def. Bogicevic/Avery (UM) 6-1
3. Cable/Okpara (D) def. Tripathy/Mezini (UM) 6-0

Singles
1. Anna Napadiy (UM) vs. Racquel Lyn (D) DNF ((5) 6-6 (3))
2. Catherine Cable (D) def. Martina Bocchi (UM) 6-0, 6-1
3. Chidimma Okpara (D) vs. Jovana Bogicevic (UM) DNF (6-1, 3-2)
4. Ashley Hess (D) def. Ashley Avery (UM) 6-1, 6-1
5. Allison McCann (D) vs. Jasmin Tripathy (UM) DNF (6-2, 1-2)
6. Nina Paripovic (D) def. Sarah Mezini (UM) 6-1, 6-0 

#4 Columbia 4, #1 Harvard 1
Doubles
1. Bhan/Ferrari (C) def. Friedel/Eason (H) 6-4
2. Dakar/Haynes (C) vs. Gonzalez/Lim (H) DNF (5-5)
3. Kerr/Amineni (C) def. Marculescu/Leschly (H) 6-4

Singles
1. Akanksha Bhan (C) vs. Jenna Friedel (H) 4-6, 2-4
2. Melissa Sakar (C) def. Sophia Ho (H) 7-5, 6-0
3. Jennifer Kerr (C) def. Rachel Eason (H) 6-1, 6-3
4. Mihaela Marculescu (H) def. Michelle Xu (C) 6-3, 6-3
5. Shivani Amineni (C) vs. Lexi Milunovich (H) DNF (6-0, 3-6, 3-2)
6. Julia Haynes (C) def. Natasha Gonzalez (H) 6-3, 6-3

#3 Yale 4, #2 Penn 1
Doubles
1. Martinelli/Gong (Y) def. Bryzgalova/Curnic (P) 6-3
2. Kung/Lin (Y) def. Tartakovsky/Chan (P) 6-4
3. Zhu/Xie (P) vs. Shrivastava/Dunleavy (Y) DNF (5-5)

Singles
1. Iuliia Bryzgalova (P) def. Samantha Martinelli (Y) 6-4, 6-4
2. Chelsea Kung (Y) def. Ashley Zhu (P) 6-3, 6-0
3. Marija Curnic (P) vs Caroline Dunleavy (Y) DNF (3-6, 6-6)
4. Rena Lin (Y) def. Sonia Tartakovsky (P) 7-6, 6-0
5. Amanda Chan (P) vs. Raissa Lou (Y) DNF (6-2, 2-6, 1-0)
6. Rhea Shrivastova (Y) def. Carolyn Xie (P) 6-4, 6-3