The No. 11 ranked Tufts women’s tennis team marked the return of Tufts sports on Saturday with a dominant 9–0 victory over Brandeis in Waltham. While no spectators were permitted at the match, it was the first Tufts athletics competition this year. The match also marked the season opener for the Brandeis Judges.
The Jumbos came out swinging, with sophomore Maddie Suk and junior Anna Lowy defeating Isabel Cepeda and Olivia Howe from Brandeis 8–1 in the opening doubles match. The Jumbos’ top-rated duo of juniors Maggie Dorr and Caroline Garrido followed this strong performance with an 8–2 victory over Brandeis’ Lauren Bertsch and Nikita Salkar. The sophomore squad of Tilly Rigby and Casey Cummings rounded out the doubles competitions for Tufts with an 8–3 victory over Ana Hatfield and Ella Subramanian.
“Our captains Patricia and Kiara have done a great job of bringing in all the [first-years] and making sure we all feel comfortable,” said first-year first singles player Zoe Kava. “They have also done a great job at bringing the team together and getting us ready for this first match.”
Carrying a 3–0 lead into the singles competition, Kava breezed to a 6–2, 6–0 victory over Brandeis' Olivia Howe. Suk and Rigby carried the Jumbos to a match-clinching 6–0 lead with singles victories. Cummings dominated both sets 6–0 to expand the Tufts lead to 7–0, and senior co-caption Patricia Obeid and Dorr completed the Jumbos' 9–0 shutout.
“I got off to a little bit of a slow start in the first set,” Kava said. “But once I started to feel more comfortable and the nerves started to settle down I was really able to settle in and be aggressive and go for big shots.”
A lot has changed for Tufts tennis in the past year. The Vouté Courts, which previously served as the team’s primary venue, is now home to temporary quarantine housing units for students who test positive for COVID-19, as well as for those students’ close contacts. The team now practices on the courts behind Harleston Hall.
The match Saturday was Tufts' first athletic competition in over a year. Tufts and the NESCAC suspended sports following a March 10, 2020 men’s lacrosse match against Ithaca College. The NESCAC did not allow competition in the fall 2020 semester or the beginning of the spring 2021 season. Therecent decision by Tufts and the NESCAC to permit sports for the remainder of the season was welcome news for many Tufts athletes.
“It's definitely been a weird year. I don’t think any sports teams were expecting to have a season, so we are all just really excited to get started and grateful and just want to take it match by match. We have to stay enthusiastic and positive," Kava said. "I missed it so much and I think everyone missed it, so we are all really happy to be competing against other teams and not just each other in practice.”
Looking ahead, the Tufts women's tennis team currently has three more matches scheduled for the remainder of the season. They are set to face Colby and Conn. College at home over the next two weekends and finish the season at Trinity.
“We have to keep the energy up and keep encouraging each other to do better in practice and keep motivating each other,” Kava said. "That’s going to be really important for the rest of our season.
Editor's note: Zoe Kava is an assistant news editor at The Tufts Daily. Zoe was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
