Women’s tennis reaches historic mark with win over Brown
By Grace D'arcy, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Monday, April 21, 2008
With a close 4-3 victory over Brown Friday in Providence, R.I., the Big Green set a new program record for most wins in a regular season.
The Big Green edged out Brown on Friday to earn the record for most team wins in the history of Dartmouth women's tennis. But, with Yale's victory last weekend, the Ivy League title fell out of Dartmouth's reach.
In a close victory over Brown (10-9, 1-4 Ivy), Dartmouth (15-3, 3-2) notched its 15th win of the year, breaking the record for single-season victories.
"It was definitely nice to get back on the winning track," tri-captain Megan Zebroski '08 said.
The match was close throughout, with two third-set wins for each squad. But Dartmouth solidly delivered a loss to the Bears, giving Brown its fourth 4-3 Ivy loss on the season. Brown has only earned one conference win, a 7-0 thrashing of Columbia last week in New York City.
"I feel like Brown, they have lost almost all [close] matches," Zebroski said.
The women's doubles teams all performed well this weekend, picking up an important team point by sweeping Brown in doubles matches.
The powerhouse duo of Zebroski and Molly Scott '11, which has won 13 of its matches this year, downed the Bears, 8-6, in the No. 1 doubles seed.
Zebroski also sailed over her opponent at No. 2 singles, to deliver one of the three essential singles points for the Big Green. Scott put up a good fight but was downed in the third set, 6-1, at No. 1 singles.
The No. 2 doubles pair of Mary Beth Winingham '10 and Jesse Adler '10 won, 8-5, and tri-captain Maggie Suydam '08 and Georgiana Smyser '11 delivered a win with a score of 8-6 at No. 3 doubles.
Adler and Smyser also picked up essential points at No. 4 and No. 5 singles, respectively. Smyser was defeated, 6-4, in her first set, but found turned the game around and dominated in the second and third sets, 6-2, 6-1, to close out the victory.
After Smyser's win, Mary Beth Winingham remained on the courts battling out her No. 3 singles match against Brown's sophomore Tanja Vucetic. But Smyser's win had already ensured a 4-3 Dartmouth victory so Winingham's match was cut off at 1-1 in the third set.
The match was decided by a close 7-point tiebreaker in which Vecetic just managed to edge out Winingam.
"I like to say that she would have won the third set if she had pulled it out, then it could have been 5-2," Zebroski said.
On Sunday, the women played the Ivy League champions Yale (10-8, 6-0 Ivy) in Hanover. Results of the match were not available as of press time.
The team will finish the season against Harvard in Hanover on Wednesday.
"I think it's probably going to be really competitive." Zebroski said.
Although Yale tops the Ivy League, Dartmouth has a much higher overall win percentage. Zebroski conceded, however, this is likely due to the toughness of the teams' respective schedules.
"I don't want to take away anything from what we've done, but we probably have a few easier teams comparatively," Zebroski said.
Yale's win on Friday ensured it at least a share of the Ivy League title, its first since the 1980-1981 season.
A Dartmouth win over Yale on Sunday, and a Penn (10-7, 5-1 Ivy) victory over Columbia (2-14, 0-6 Ivy) would mean that Yale and Penn would share the Ivy League championship title and face off against each other for a place in the NCAA championship. The Big Green are mathematically eliminated from claiming a piece of the Ancient Eight crown.
The Big Green now looks towards their final match of the season with Harvard.
"Were just hoping to have a ton of fun our last few days," Zebroski said, "Just looking back on the year I'm just really proud of our team."