The women's tennis team rolled through a pair of dual matches over the weekend unchallenged, cruising to dominant 9-0 wins over non-conference foes MIT and Babson. For their overwhelming victories, the Jumbos did not drop a set in any of their 12 singles matches and lost a grand total of four games across six doubles matches.
On Friday in Cambridge, Mass., Tufts put together a near-perfect effort against an MIT squad so depleted by illness that just six players were able to suit up. Among those sidelined was senior Leslie Hansen, the anchor of the team's singles and doubles lineup and the seventh-ranked singles player in the Northeast region.
The Jumbos, however, showed the Engineers no mercy, earning love-and-love victories at five of the six singles spots. MIT sophomore Anastasia Vishnevetsky managed to score one game against junior tri-captain Julia Browne at the No. 1 singles slot to prevent a clean sweep.
"They definitely didn't have their best lineup there that day, but at the same time, we easily could have gone out there and felt it was going to be an easy match and not played to our potential," senior tri-captain Meghan McCooey said. "We didn't let that affect the way we played; we still went out strong and focused on our game and used each match to really work on things and get better."
Babson mounted a bit more of a challenge Sunday in a match that was moved indoors to the Gantcher Center because of inclement weather. Yet Tufts still ran away with a shutout victory to conclude the abbreviated fall portion of its dual-match schedule at a perfect 2-0 mark.
During the preseason, coach Kate Bayard called her 2009-10 roster "the strongest that we've had in the last number of years" in part because of the addition of a solid freshman class. In their first taste of dual-match action, rookies Janice Lam and Lindsay Katz held down the third and fourth singles spots, respectively, with Katz yielding just two games over the entire weekend of play. Meanwhile, classmate Lauren Hollender made her collegiate debut with a 6-0, 6-0 rout of MIT first-year Caitlin Pomeroy at the No. 6 singles position.
"Me and the other two freshmen, we're all really competitive, and when we play against each other in practice, our matches are always really close," Lam said. "I feel like we just fit in well with this team, and it's been a lot of fun so far. We've only been here for three weeks, but it's been really exciting for the time we've been here."
"All three of them just played incredibly," McCooey added. "They didn't show any signs of nervousness, and they showed a lot of mental toughness and confidence by just getting right in there and playing gutsy tennis. It's going to be really exciting to see how well they do in the spring once we start to play against some tougher competition."
Since the season-opening ITA New England Championships, where the Jumbos advanced five players to the final 32 in the singles bracket, the depth of this year's Tufts squad has been readily apparent. The bottom third of the Jumbos' singles lineup was especially solid over the weekend, with a rotation of junior Edwina Stewart, Hollender, senior Erica Miller and sophomore Jenn LaCara combining to win four matches love-and-love.
"That's how the team this year distinguishes itself from those in years past — we just have so much more depth than we've ever had," McCooey said. "Everyone could play anywhere in the lineup. We're all so even, and we can all give each other a good match. It's really exciting to know that we have that kind of depth throughout our entire lineup, and that gives us a lot of confidence going into every match."
Tufts' matches against MIT and Babson also featured strong doubles play. Fresh off their victory at ITAs, the Browne-McCooey tandem kept rolling with runaway wins out of the top doubles spot, while the first-time pairing of Katz and Miller had little difficulty at No. 2. Meanwhile, Lam and Hollender both got their first taste of college doubles over the weekend, teaming to post a pair of 8-1 victories out of the third spot.
"[Hollender] is the perfect doubles partner for me," Lam said. "Even when I miss a point or when I double-fault, she brings me back and moves on to trying to win the next point. I feel like we're a great team, and I'm really glad Coach put us together. It's been great playing with her, and I feel like we're going to get a lot better."
With the fall season dual matches now behind them, the Jumbos look ahead to a pair of season-ending events. On Oct. 15, Browne and McCooey will head to Mobile, Ala. to defend their ITA doubles national championship. The following day, the rest of the squad will partake in a regional tournament in western Massachusetts. Tufts will look to put an exclamation point on a stellar campaign, which has thus far featured a New England doubles championship and two resounding dual-match wins.
"We've just had a great start — we couldn't have really asked for much better," McCooey said.
