After three straight Ivy League losses, the women's tennis team turned its season around last weekend. In an exciting two-day homestand, the Bears beat then-No. 69 Cornell 4-3 and then took down Columbia 6-1. The team's record now stands at 7-11 overall and 2-3 in the Ivy League.
In Friday's matchup with the Big Red, the Bears got off to an auspicious start by sweeping the doubles matches to take the first point. Sara Mansur '09 and Michelle Pautler '07 crushed their opponents 8-1, while the team of Kelly Kirkpatrick '08 and Emily Ellis '10 won 8-3 and Daisy Ames '07 and Kathrin Sorokko '10 pulled out an 8-7(2) win.
But Cornell struck back by winning at No. 1, 2 and 4 singles to take a 3-1 lead. Needing to win all three remaining matches in order to take the contest, Mansur and Alexa Baggio '09 split sets while Ellis was locked in a tight battle at No. 6 singles. Competing with spirit, Mansur ended up winning 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-4, and Ellis came up victorious as well, posting a score of 6-3, 7-6 (6). In the deciding match, Baggio took her final set 7-5 to secure a dramatic 4-3 come-from-behind victory.
"I thought we played great against Cornell," Ellis said. "We wanted it so badly ... in my match I was down 5-2 before coming back and getting it to a tiebreaker, so it was definitely cool to win that match."
After its emotional win Friday, the team's tilt with Columbia was much more one-sided. Brown swept the doubles matches, using strong serve-and-volley play to beat the Lions 8-4, 8-2 and 8-1 in the three matches. In singles, Brown got wins from Pautler, Ames, Mansur, Ellis and Vucetic to complete the team's stellar weekend.
Brown Assistant Coach Cecily Debusker said the wins showed marked improvement from earlier in the season.
"I definitely think that if we could play some of (our) earlier opponents again it would be different," she said. "We lost a lot of matches because of inexperience and hiccups in focus here and there. This weekend showed how far we've come."
Brown will finish its season by traveling to Dartmouth on Friday and hosting Harvard at noon on Sunday. If the team notches another weekend sweep, it will finish the year with its first winning Ivy League record since the 2003 season.
"We'd love to be 4-3 on the season," Debusker said. "I've been watching the other teams and we're as strong as them, if not stronger, so I think we have a good chance to do it."
