If one looked through the tournament brackets hanging on the walls of Cornell’s Reis Tennis Center yesterday, more often than not, one would see a Cornell player’s name on the winning end. And that’s pretty much the story for this past weekend’s Cornell Fall Invitational, which proved to be an impressive opener for this year’s women’s tennis team.
Against competition from Rutgers, Syracuse, Lehigh and Binghamton, Cornell sent players deep into the draw in both singles and doubles. In fact, Cornell dominated the singles matches, sweeping the “A,” “B,” and “C” draws. Senior Laura Leigh Tallent,and sophomore Akane Kokubo made it an all Cornell Final in the “A” flight singles. The final will be played later this week.
Meanwhile, two freshmen, Kasia Preneta and Nisha Suda made very impressive debuts, winning their respective “B” and “C” singles draws without a dropping a single game in either of their finals matches.
The Red was also strong in doubles, an area that was often a weakness for last year’s team. Cornell’s team of Kokubo and Mollie Edinson reached the finals of the “A” doubles draw before losing 8-3 to Lehigh’s Rachel Samson and Kristen Nowicki.
Junior Erika Takeuchi and Tallent won the consolation draws for “A” doubles while, sophomore Kara Maloy and freshman Kasia Preneta advanced to the semis of the “B” flight before losing, 8-6, in a hard-fought match against a Syracuse team that went on to win “B” doubles.
Co-captains Melissa Tu and Takeuchi, both juniors, were pleased with how the team looked in its debut.
“The returning players worked really hard over the summer, and it was nice to put that hard work into practice” commented Tu.
Takeuchi felt similarly saying, “It was a great opportunity for players to really prove their games and put their practice and hard work into motion.”
The Red will be in action again in two weeks at the Maryland Invitational in College Park.
Archived article by Paul Testa