The women’s tennis team traveled to Hanover, New Hampshire this weekend to compete in the Dartmouth Fall Foliage Festival, where they faced off against Dartmouth, Boston College, UConn and UMass Amherst over the course of three days.
“Our team competed really well,” Abigail Lee ’29 wrote in an email to The Herald. “Our energy was through the roof, and it (was) reflected in our results.”
The festival followed the Bears’ season opener at the Bulldog Invitational in New Haven, Connecticut last weekend, where they competed against Yale, Rutgers, Quinnipiac and Boston University. Both Lee and Francesca Saroli ’29 each secured their first collegiate wins in both singles and doubles at the Yale tournament — both players’ Division I debut.
On the opening day of the Fall Foliage Festival, Chloe Qin ’29 earned her first singles victory as a Bear with a clean 6-2, 6-3 win over UMass’s Defne Su Sever. Qin carried this momentum into her doubles matches alongside Anne Yang ’27, with the duo defeating Su Sever and Owethu Makhanya in doubles and claiming a 6-3 victory.
Saroli and Lee picked up the Bears’ two other singles victories of the day, each defeating their Big Green opponents in straight sets. At second singles, Lee bested Dartmouth senior Valentina Cruz 6–3, 6–3.
“The match started out well — I was playing offensively and forcing errors upon my opponent,” Lee wrote in an email to The Herald. “But as (Cruz) started gaining more rhythm, I had to adapt and change my playing style a bit.”
“I had to be more patient and hit more balls and really wait to strike on the perfect ball,” Lee added.
For Lee, the team atmosphere played a crucial role in boosting her confidence. “I didn’t realize how big of an impact team cheering on college tennis would be, but it really helped,” she wrote.
Qin shared similar sentiments, adding that it felt good to have her teammates cheering her on during key points.
“Those moments really remind you what you’re fighting for and how fun it is to compete,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.
On Saturday, the team kept the ball rolling with three more singles wins by Hannah Shen ’27, Bella Hu ’28 and Ali Maguy ’28. Hu and Maguy secured straight-set victories, while Shen battled for the match in a close super tiebreaker, ultimately edging out Boston College junior Tola Glowacka 6-3, 1-6 and 10-8.
The Bears demolished the competition from UMass and Boston College on the final day of competition, racking up a stunning seven singles and three doubles victories.
At the first singles spot against UMass, Dani Ben-Abraham ’27 dueled Ella Faessler in a second-set tiebreaker to win the match 6-3, 7-6 (5). At the No. 2 spot, Yang triumphed over Amanda de Oliviera to earn her first singles victory of the season, clinching a 6-2, 6-4 win. In the third singles match against the Minutemen, Hu brought home the third consecutive singles win of the day, with a decisive 6-2, 6-3 victory.
In the latter half of the day, the Bears steamrolled Boston College without dropping a single set. Singles victories were delivered by Shen, Saroli, Maguy and Lee, with Lee’s opponent retiring after just two games in the first set.
During doubles against Boston College, Ben-Abraham and Lee secured a 6-4 victory, followed by the team of Maguy and Anne Moody ’26, which picked up another 6-4 triumph at the No. 2 spot.
Head Coach Lucie Schmidhauser described the day as the “best of the season so far” in a postmatch interview with Brown Athletics. “We came out with excellent intensity in doubles and carried that momentum into our singles play.”
During the fall semester, the team competes in various individual events — like the tournaments at Yale and Dartmouth — that allow players to gain experience before the team’s formal season in the spring, Schmidhauser wrote in an email to The Herald. These fall tournaments, she added, allow players to “get to know each other, create camaraderie and develop good team culture.”
Although Qin has only been on the team for a few weeks, she has loved her experience thus far. “I always have people I can ask for help if I need it,” she wrote. “We have a great group of girls and I’m really excited to grow with them.”
The team will next compete at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals on Oct. 9 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
