Columbia University
ITA Regional Championships
Women's Tennis has Strong Performance at ITA Regionals
10/25/2010 5:52:00 PM | Women's Tennis
NEW YORK – The Columbia women's tennis team spent the weekend in Hanover, N.H., taking part in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) Women's Division 1 Northeast Regional Championships. The duo of Nicole Bartnik and Bianca Sanon advanced to the semifinals of the main draw in doubles, before falling to the top seeds.
The Lions had strong performances from the entire team on the weekend, however, with several individual wins. First-year Ioana Alecsiu fell in the first round of the qualifying singles bracket, losing to Boston University's Jessica Linero, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4. Fellow first-year Tiana Takenaga had some better luck, notching a first round win over her opponent from Rutgers, 6-4, 6-3, before falling to Dartmouth's Sabrina Stewart, 6-2, 6-2.
In the main draw, sophomore Nicole Bartnik, seeded 10th, lost in the round of 32, 2-6, 6-0, 6-2 to eventual finalist Veronica Corning of Boston College. First-year Bianca Sanon had a win in the round of 32, before falling in the round of 16. An unseeded Sanon upset the No.16 seed Amy Zhang of Rutgers, 6-2, 6-4, before falling to Cornell's Christine Ordway, 7-6(4), 6-1. Senior Natasha Makarova also had one win before bowing out of the tournament, as she defeated Jaime Yapp-Shing of Penn, 6-1, 6-1, before falling to Jillian Santos of Binghamton. And sophomore Chelsea Davis had a first round loss, as Army's Annie Houghton beat her, 7-5, 6-4.
In doubles, Alecsiu and Takenaga fell in the opening rounds to the No.9 seed from Dartmouth, 8-5, while Davis and Makarova won their opening match 8-1 against a duo from Hofstra, before falling to a pair from Buffalo, 8-2.
But the real story of the tournament was the success of the doubles team of Bartnik and Sanon. The pair, seeded ninth coming into the tournament, advanced all the way to the semifinals, before falling to the No.1 seeded pair, Hilary Bartlett and Taylor Marable of Princeton.
Bartnik and Sanon opened the tournament with an 8-2 win over Kuzmenko and Mayevska of NJIT, and followed that up with an 8-5 win over Labarthe and Viebrock of Quinnipiac. In the round of 16, the Lions notched an upset, as they topped the No.3 seeded pair from Harvard of Holly Cao and Samantha Rosenkans, 8-5. The quarterfinals saw the Columbia pair notch another upset, as they beat the No.6 seeded duo of Marina Byjovskaya and Anna Edelman from Binghampton, 8-5, and advanced to the semifinals to take on the Tigers. There, Bartnik and Sanon fought hard, but lost to the No.1 seed, 8-3.
Up next for the Lions is the 2010 USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, which Columbia will host at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, in Flushing, N.Y., November 4-7.
Players Mentioned
