Men's, women's tennis defeat Monarchs easily

A sad silence hovered over the deserted basketball stadium early Saturday afternoon following the men's decisive loss to Brown the night before. A roar of cheering fans echoed in the depths of Jad-win as women's tennis battled to a 4-3 victory over Old Dominion to open their season.

Thanks to a newly installed speaker system, the players experienced amplified claps and cheers that virtually doubled their fan support. In a generous turnout for tennis, 35 fans packed the four-tiered bleachers four floors below the grand basketball stadium.

Among the fans was President Shirley Tilghman, observing the No. 1 doubles duo of senior captain Kavitha Krishnamurthy and freshman Neha Uberoi.

"That was an Agassi-like return. Awesome!" Tilghman said as Uberoi nailed a winning forehand return past her opponents.

But ODU came back strong and showed it was ready to put up a fight, sweeping all three doubles matches.

"It's not a good sign that we lost all three doubles," head coach Louise Gengler said. Though the doubles victory only added one point to the scoreboard for ODU, the point makes a big difference in close matches. With the momentum against them, the Tigers needed to prevail in four of the six singles matches to win.

Rebounding

Uberoi turned the tide towards victory with her swift 6-0, 6-1 win at No. 2 singles. Sophomore Stephanie Berg and junior Jackie Arcario followed suit in their straight set wins at No. 3 and No. 4 singles.

It was junior Mateya McCoy who clinched the match for the Tigers with her three-set win at No. 5 singles. After being swept 6-0 in the first set, McCoy fought back to take revenge in a 6-1 third set win.

At the top of the ladder, Krishnamurthy made an impressive showing by taking her nationally ranked opponent to three sets. She was not able to pull out the win, however, losing the match, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Unlike the men's team, the women went into the match without the experience of intersession matches.

"I'm actually surprised we did as well as we did considering the moratorium and starting [the season] late," Gengler said. With a victory to add to their 3-1 record from the fall, the Tigers proved they are prepared to start the season.

Men's tennis finds a win

With the heat of victory still fresh on the courts, the men's tennis team continues the winning streak against ODU. Unlike the women, this was not its first match of the season and a slow start in doubles was not a problem. The men's doubles teams captured wins in all three positions and the momentum carried over into singles, where the Tigers only lost one match to finish 6-1.

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The final score may not have been close, but the Monarchs did not let the Tigers off the court without a sweat. In three of the five successful singles matches, Princeton won 6-4 in the third set — indicating that a 4-3 victory for ODU was not far from reach.

When the Tigers were leading 3-1, with only one match needed to win, they were behind in the three remaining matches.

At No. 4 singles, freshman Hans Plukas was down 4-1 in the third set.

"We were definitely really nervous," junior Daniel Friedman said, who won decisively in straight sets along with freshman Darius Craton. "It definitely could have gone either way."

But all three Tigers — sophomore Josh Burman, freshman Andrew Lieu and Plukas — pulled through to capture what seemed to be a decisive 6-1 victory over a tough opponent.

"They're nationally ranked, but we weren't intimidated at all," Friedman said, who felt the team gained a lot of confidence over intersession when it came close to defeating No. 20 North Carolina. "Seeing we could compete with some of the best teams in the country made us confident we could win [against ODU]."