Women's tennis wraps up season

Author: Alex Lovett-Woodsum

The Middlebury women's tennis team finished up its fall season at Amherst College this weekend, playing in the newly formatted New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament (NEWITT). For the first year, the tournament was played in the exciting "Fed Cup" style, with four teams of two entering either the A or B draw and playing another two person team in both singles and doubles.

The Panthers were represented in the A draw by the senior teams of Elizabeth Emery '09 and Elizabeth Stone '09, and Clare Burke '09 and Chandra Kurien '09. Middlebury's second team of Victoria Aiello '12 and Anna Burke '12 was forced to withdraw due to an injury. After a first-round upset by Bowdoin's number two team 2-1, Emery and Stone bounced back in the consolation round, winning in the quarterfinals over the number two team from Babson and defeating the number one team from Trinity both 3-0 to make it to the finals, which were not played due to time constraints.

"We did not yield the best results on Friday, but we made up for it throughout the rest of the weekend," said Stone. "The unique format of the tournament facilitated a lot of match play, which will be highly beneficial in the long-run."

The duo of Kurien and Burke easily won its first main draw match over the second team from Mount Holyoke 3-0 before falling in a tight match in the next round to the top-ranked team of Cary Gibson and Nikki Reich from Williams College. Burke played solid tennis, beating nationally-ranked Gibson, while Kurien lost to Reich in a particularly tight match. The team then lost in doubles in another close competition. Gibson and Reich demonstrated a powerful performance when they won the Gail Smith Doubles Tournament at Middlebury in early October, and showed incredible consistency again as they breezed through the next two rounds before going on to decisively defeat the second team from Amherst in the finals, 3-0. Burke and Kurien came out strong in the consolation round, easily defeating teams from Simmons College and Trinity College to make it to the finals alongside Stone and Emery.

Also representing Middlebury this weekend in the B draw were the teams of Alyssa Puccinelli '12 and Alex Guynn '12 and Hilary Cunningham '12 and Whitney Hanson '11. The team of Puccinelli/Guynn had the best results of the weekend for the Panthers, winning its first match over Connecticut College 2-1, followed by a round-of-16 win over Regis College's number one team before losing a tough match to Williams in the quarterfinals. Cunningham and Hanson lost a round-of-32 match to Endicott, but made it to the consolation-round semis where they lost 2-1 to the team from MIT.

Middlebury coach Mike Morgan and co-captains Burke and Stone are pleased with the progress the younger members of the team have made this fall. According to Morgan, "the team has talked about what they need to do in the offseason in terms of fitness to get ready for the spring." With the return of Jamie Haar '10 from abroad and time to recover from injuries, the players feel they will be ready to challenge any team they face in the upcoming spring season.