Photo Courtesy of UR Athletics
Women’s Tennis won their first match of the season last weekend, beating intrastate rival, Ithaca College, 6-3 at home on Saturday, Feb. 21.
Five different ‘Jackets won matches on the day, with junior Christine Ho and sophomores Dorothy Tai and Lauren Zickar all grabbing wins in both singles and doubles.
In doubles, Rochester jumped out to big leads at both the first and third positions. The third team of Zickar and freshman Alex Wolkoff were in control throughout, cruising to a comfortable 8-2 win to give UR its first point of the day.
At first doubles, Ithaca battled to work their way back into the match after being down two breaks of serve. With the momentum appearing to shift to the visitors, the pairing of Ho and Tai regrouped to close out the match with a strong service game from Ho at 8-6.
Despite already dropping two of the three doubles matches, Ithaca kept themselves in the overall match with a win at second doubles, regaining some of the momentum as the team switched gears and moved into singles play.
Any hope of an Ithaca comeback was diminished shortly after the singles began, as Ho, Tai, and junior Molly Goodman all won quick first sets at first, second and fourth. The three continued to dominate, each wrapping up their victory without losing more than two games in any set. The three wins gave Rochester the five total points needed to clinch the match.
At this point, though the overall match was already decided, the ‘Jackets continued to earn another point at sixth singles, thanks to Zickar impressive effort, winning 6-1, 6-1.
UR’s next five matches are all against nationally-ranked opponents, beginning in Cleveland on Feb. 28, where they will visit UAA opponent Case Western Reserve University. The team will then head to Southern California for their annual spring break trip, where they will play four matches against Carnegie Mellon, Washington University in St. Louis, Chapman and Whittier.
Shapiro is a member of the class of 2016.
