Volume 118 >> Issue 43 : Wednesday, September 23, 1998

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Women's Tennis Splits a Pair of Matches Over the Weekend

The women's tennis team won one of two matches at home Saturday. They dropped the first contest to Skidmore College, the defending Division III national champions, 8­1, but rebounded against Springfield College to win 5­4.

Play started off with doubles against Skidmore. MIT earned its lone point at first doubles, where Mealani Nakamura '00 and Kelly Koskelin '02 won 8­4. Jessica Hall '02 and Nisha Singh '00 lost 8­2 at second doubles, as did Yi-Ning Cheng '02 and Shikha Gupta '01 at third doubles. Divya Bhat '02 and Priscilla Cheung '02 fell 8­3 at fourth doubles.

In singles play, the closest and most exciting match of the day came at first singles, where Nakamura lost in three sets, 6­3, 6­7 (7­4), 6­1. Koskelin lost at second singles, 6­3, 6­1. Hall and Singh lost at third and fourth singles, respectively, by scores of 6­0, 6­1, and 6­1, 6­0. Cheng lost at fifth singles 6­0, 6­2, and Cheung lost at sixth singles 6­1, 6­0.

Against Springfield, Nakamura and Koskelin won 8­2 at first doubles, while Hall and Singh lost 8­5 at second doubles. Gupta and Cheng won 8­4 at third doubles.

In singles, Nakamura blanked her opponent 6­0, 6­0 at first singles, while Koskelin won 6­3, 6­0 at second singles. Hall won 6­1, 6­4 at third singles, while Singh lost 6­4, 6­0 at fourth singles. Cheng lost 6­3, 6­4 at fifth singles, and Bhat lost 6­3, 6­2 at sixth singles.

"Our performances today were spotty at best," said coach Carol Matsuzaki. "We need to improve on our confidence in our individual games as well as work on working hard."

The team's next match is at home today against Babson College.