Sophomore Hideko Tachibana, shown here in earlier action, turned in four straight-set wins over the weekend, as the No. 54 women’s tennis squad improved to 2-0 in league play with defeats of Cornell and Columbia. Tachibana held down the No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles spots for Harvard. which is now 7-6 on the year.
It’s safe to say that it can be difficult for teams to get back into the swing of things after playing only one match in the past month—but not for the Harvard women’s tennis team.
Over the weekend, the No. 54 Crimson (7-6, 2-0 Ivy) defeated both Cornell (8-6, 0-2 Ivy) and Columbia (9-8, 0-2 Ivy) at the Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca, N.Y., and the Dick Savitt Tennis Center in New York, N.Y., respectively, giving up only one point in its first two matches of Ivy League play.
HARVARD 6, COLUMBIA 1
On Saturday, Harvard competed against the Lions in the second match of its opening weekend of Ivy play.
The No. 2 duo of junior co-captain Holly Cao and freshman Hannah Morrill finished first to give the Crimson the edge in doubles play. They defeated Columbia freshmen Bianca Sanon and Tiana Takenaga, 8-1.
Next to finish was the No. 3 team of co-captain Samantha Rosekrans and freshman Natalie Blosser, who secured an 8-4 victory over sophomore Katarina Kovacevic and freshman Ioana Alecsiu to earn the doubles point for Harvard.
Sophomores Hideko Tachibana and Kristin Norton added to the spotless doubles’ record for the weekend, winning, 8-4, against sophomore Nicole Bartnik and senior Natasha Makarova.
“It was a very solid start to the Ivy League season,” Harvard coach Traci Green said. “We’ve been training very hard, and we haven’t played in a while, so it was good to get some matches under our belt.”
The Crimson did not let its intensity falter going into the singles part of the match.
Cao, undefeated this season, added another victory to her record. Winning 6-4, 6-1, over Bartnik, she emerged as the first singles win that afternoon.
“I’ve played all of these players before last year,” Cao said. “I just try to stick to my game plan. I try to stay aggressive from the baseline. I knew what their games were like, and nothing was too much of a surprise. I played two pretty solid matches over the weekend, so I’m pretty pleased with that.”
The other singles matches proved to be slightly more difficult for Harvard.
Norton was the next to finish, closing out a tough first set in a tiebreak; she won the match against Kovacevic, 7-6 (5), 6-3.
Morrill, Tachibana, and Blosser also added straight-set wins over the Lions for a 6-0 lead.
The only blemish on the Crimson’s record for the weekend came from the No. 5 singles match between junior Samantha Gridley and Columbia’s Alecsiu, the last match on the court. Alecsiu edged Gridley in the first set, 7-5, and took care of business by winning the second set, 6-1.
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