Coming off two strong tournaments, women’s tennis will hope to continue its strong fall season during its inaugural appearance at the Wildcat Invitational in Evanston this weekend.
Last weekend, at the Riviera/ITA All-American Championship, first-year Melissa Sakar bounced back from a first-round loss against Mississippi State’s Anastasia Rentouilli to defeat Utah’s PAC-12-caliber competitor Brianna Chisholm 6-4, 6-3 in the second round. The pairs of first-years Akanksha Bhan and Paulina Ferrari and senior Andrea Kevakian and sophomore Christie Wan, saw positive results in the pre-qualifying doubles round, but ultimately stumbled in subsequent rounds.
Meanwhile, at the West Point Invitational, juniors Renee Ren and Brianna Williams earned first place in the C Singles draw and the E Singles consolation draw, respectively.
This weekend, women’s tennis will compete against the likes of Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Michigan, DePaul, Illinois, Utah, Charleston Southern, and Kentucky. Princeton will be the only other Ivy League team in attendance.
Head coach Ilene Weintraub, CC ’02, noted that she scheduled the Wildcat Invitational to provide her team with a challenge in preparation for the dual season in the spring.
“I wanted to add another very competitive event to our fall schedule to give our strong and deep team this year more opportunities to compete against high-level competition,” Weintraub said.
Columbia has four players heading to the tournament. Sakar will be joined by senior captain Sarah Hu, sophomore Jennifer Kerr, and first-year Yekaterina Alferova. All four players will be competing in both singles and doubles; and Weintraub will debut new lineup changes—as Kerr will play doubles with Sakar while Hu will be paired with Alferova.
“We have been working on some new plays in doubles and we will be trying out some new pairing with our teams this weekend,” Weintraub said. “I am looking forward to seeing if we are able to translate what we have been learning into our match play.”
Play from Evanston will begin Friday and continue throughout the weekend.
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