The women’s tennis team (6-12, 0-3 Ivy League) fell to Penn (12-8, 2-1) and Princeton (7-10, 4-1) in matches over the weekend. The Bears lost to the Quakers 4-0 Saturday and to the Tigers 4-1 Sunday, with Brown hosting both games at the Varsity Tennis Courts.
“I think that our team fought really well this weekend,” Lindsey Hofflander ’25 said. “Although we didn’t get the results we wanted, we have confidence going into the rest of our season.”
The Bears and the Quakers split the first two doubles matches to open Saturday’s contest after a 6-2 win by the duo of Hofflander and Sophia Reddy ’22. In the deciding match, Ali Benedetto ’24 and Nora Lee ’24 lost by one point in a tiebreaker round to give Penn the doubles point.
Brown could not regain momentum, losing three straight singles matches to give Penn a 4-0 win.
“We let the disappointment of losing the doubles point impact the beginning of the singles play and Penn took advantage of that,” Head Coach Lucie Schmidhauser said. “We fought back on most courts, but it was too late to shift the momentum in our favor.”
On Sunday afternoon, the Bears again found themselves on the cusp of earning the doubles point against Princeton after the teams split the first two matches. A Tigers duo won the first match, followed by a 6-2 win by Addison Ahlstrom ’25 and Britany Lau ’23. This time, Hofflander and Reddy won the third match to earn the doubles point for the Bears, and Brown took a 1-0 lead.
“Winning the doubles point was critical for us,” Hofflander said. “I believe that our team can build off of this going into our upcoming matches.”
But Princeton responded forcefully, winning four singles matches in a row to beat the Bears 4-1. Schmidhauser said the team made progress in its ability “to keep fighting no matter what and embrace competing until the last point.”
“Each match can really go either way this year in Ivies,” Ahlstrom said. “I think we put ourselves in positions to win both days but were unable to maintain control and didn’t seize those opportunities.
“Looking forward to the next couple weekends,” Ahlstrom added, “I think how we do will depend on if we can seize those opportunities with a little more urgency in such a talented and competitive league this year.”
Brown will face Columbia (10-10, 0-3), Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth over the next two weekends as it continues Ivy play. The Bears’ three-match road stretch will start on the road against Columbia April 16.
“The goal is to continue to improve the way we compete, trust in our training and believe in our abilities,” Schmidhauser said. “The goal is to do all of the controllables at the highest level. I would like to see our players fight for every point and focus on making our opponents uncomfortable.”
