In the year’s first test, senior captain Lia Weiner and sophomore Frances Tseng shined for the women’s tennis team. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships put the women against 64 other individual players and 32 double teams from all across the Northeast region in a bracket-style tournament.
Tseng and Weiner — who were seeded No. 1 and No. 2, respectively — breezed through the first three rounds, only losing nine games between them. Unfortunately, it was an uphill battle after that. Both women lost on Monday — Weiner in the quarterfinals and Tseng in the semifinals.
“The ITA regionals turned out pretty well for the most part,” Tseng said. “All of the girls fought hard and the results show … As far as the singles went, all of the girls played their best and, win or lose, we all took a lot out of this tournament.”
Juniors Alex Goodman and captain Jamie Bow also competed in singles in the tournament but were knocked out in the first round against high ranked competition.
“Both lost to tough first round opponents but competed well,” head coach Matt Nelson said. “Goodman showed toughness in her win over a player from [SUNY] Cortland in the consolation [match] winning in a tie-breaker. Bow came back strong winning two matches in the consolation.”
In doubles competition the women were equally as competitive, as both doubles team from UR finished in the semifinals. The two captains Weiner and Bow, were paired and were beaten by the No.1 seeded doubles team. Tseng and Goodman went in ranked No. 2 in doubles but were upset in the semifinals by the No. 8 ranked pair.
“Both our No. 1 and 2 doubles teams made the semi-final round,” Nelson said. “This was a great effort given that the teams have only been playing together for the past two weeks.”
The women now look ahead to the New York State Championships, which will be the end of their fall season.
“The one upside to not winning is that instead of going to nationals we’ll have all our players at our state tournament and so we should be able to do very well there,” Weiner said.
Manrique is a member of the class of 2012.
