During its fall season, the women's tennis team competes in far fewer matches than it does in its spring season. But this weekend, the Bears showed that fewer matches doesn't necessarily precipitate rusty play.
At two competitions this weekend - the Eastern Championships in West Point, N.Y., and the Columbia Invitational in New York City - Brown enjoyed a number of standout individual performances.
After finishing with a 4-3 league record last spring and winning its final four Ivy League matches, the team carried its momentum into the season-opening tournaments. The team split its squad between the two weekend events.
At the Eastern Championships, Brown played Brett Finkelstein '09, Tanja Vucetic '10, Marisa Schonfeld '11 and Ashley Butler '11. Schonfeld made an immediate impression as she won both her matches in the No. 1 singles flight to reach the quarterfinals of the event.
Schonfeld faced Denise Harijanto from the University of Buffalo for a spot in the semifinals, but after spitting the first two sets she came out on the losing end of a 10-5 tiebreaker. Finkelstein won her first match in the same flight but fell in the round of 32. She played again on Sunday, going 2-1 in the back draw.
Vucetic turned in the most determined effort at the Eastern Championships. The sophomore lost her first match on Friday, 6-2, 6-4, to put her in the No. 2 singles consolation bracket. But with a combination of persistence and skilled play, Vucetic won four straight matches to win the bracket. After bouncing back to take her first-round consolation match on Friday, Vucetic won her quarter and semifinal consolation matches on Saturday by proset scores of 8-5 and 8-4, respectively. On Sunday, Vucetic put the finishing touches on her run by taking down Colgate University's Sam Inacker 8-2 in the final.
Brown performed admirably in its competition at Columbia as well, sending six players to New York to compete against the host Lions on Friday. The Bears won two of the three doubles matches, and split the singles matches 6-6 with Columbia.
Kathrin Sorokko '10 and Bianca Aboubakare '11 led the way with two wins each. The next day Brown squared off with the University of Pennsylvania. While the team dropped the doubles competitions and fell in singles 6-5, Brown once again showed the strength of its underclassmen as Aboubakare and Itsuka Kurihara '11 won both their matches.
The Bears will next play in two weeks when they host the Brown Invitational.
