Tennis teams refuse to settle for second best

By Peter Smith

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Number one singles player Sara Naison-Phillips, BK '99, has led the women's tennis team to three consecutive victories.

On Fri., Apr. 10, the men's tennis squad traveled to West Point to face Army. Although Yale's top two players, Jonathan Beardsley, DC '99, and Andrew Tang, SM '98, lost, the Bulldogs were still able to pull out a 4-3 victory. The win can be attributed to the clutch play of two freshmen--Gregory Royce, SY '01, and Scott Carlton, JE '01--who both overcame significant deficits to pull out a victory for the Bulldogs. "They definitely put on an incredible performance under pressure," team captain Mark Warnken, TD '98, said. "We went in thinking we were going to handle them easily. There were verbal disputes going on both on and off the court, so their wins were a huge relief and made the rest of the trip much more bearable."

The men faced Cornell the next day. In another tight match, Beardsley, Royce, and Warnken were singles winners en route to a 4-3 win. "Because we swept the doubles, we had a 4-1 lead before the last two matches ended," Royce explained. "It really wasn't as close as the Army match, even though the score was the same."

The men returned home on Tues., Apr. 14, for their match against Brown. After the close matches over the weekend, the team dominated the Bears, cruising to a 7-0 victory. The win improved Yale's overall record to 13-4. "It was good to get a convincing win headed into this weekend," Warnken said. "The two victories last weekend were a lot closer than we would have liked."

The Elis face two home matches this weekend: Columbia on Fri., Apr. 17, and Pennsylvania on Sat., Apr. 18. They are currently in a three-way tie with Columbia and Princeton for second place, while Harvard, ranked 11th in the nation, holds on to the Ivy League lead. "Our next two weekends are the most important of the year, so starting off the week the way we did was very important," Royce noted. Head coach Alex Dorato added, "We're still in the race for the Ivy title, and we have a good chance of beating Columbia, Penn, and Dartmouth, but for Harvard we're going to need to have a great match and hope they have an off day." Three-year veteran Beardsley, who has played many of the players on the Harvard team, added, "We have a deep lineup, and I think if we all keep our heads in the match, we can win. It's tennis--anything can happen."

The women's team is also coming off a very successful weekend. They defeated Syracuse on Fri., Apr. 10 at home by a score of 6-3. Sara Naison-Phillips, BK '99, won her match 6-2, 6-1 in the number one singles position, while Jackie Fu, MC '00, Kirsten Gross, DC '00, and Cynthia Obsitnik, ES '01, were also winners in singles.

"It was amazing...to beat Syracuse so decisively," Naison-Phillips said. Her win was particularly exciting because her opponent had been "ranked top 50, maybe higher. I lost the first game and was convinced she was going to destroy me. I actually won pretty easily because everyone was really supportive. Even though it didn't count for Ivies, [the win] gave us the confidence to beat Cornell the next day."

As Naison-Phillips said, the team improved its overall record to 9-3 with an impressive 8-1 victory against Cornell at home on Sat., Apr. 11. The Elis swept the Big Red in doubles and won five of their six singles matches, a feat particularly impressive because the Blue had lost to Cornell in their previous two meetings. Gross won a grueling three-set match at the number five singles slot, taking the third and deciding set by a score of 6-3. "It was a big win for me both because it clinched the win for the team and because I lost to her pretty easily in the fall in two sets," Gross said. "I just tried to stay as calm as possible. I have been injured, so I was trying to ignore that, but, overall, I think it was one of the best matches I have ever played."

The women head confidently into their matches at Columbia on Fri., Apr. 17, and at Pennsylvania on Sat., Apr. 18. Both will be tough, and the Quakers have given the Bulldogs problems recently."We've always had close matches with them," Gross noted. "It has come down to the last match the last two times we have played them, so we're hoping to go at them strong because we need to win in order to be contenders."

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