Lions Advance to Sunday's ECAC Title Match

Saturday, February 8

New York, N.Y.

2 P.M.

Columbia University

Harvard

Photo by: Mike McLaughlin

2/8/2020 4:44:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Columbia 4, Harvard 1 (Boxscore PDF)ECAC Championship Bracket PDF (as of Saturday, 9 p.m.)ECAC Release

No. 4 seeded Lions defeat No. 1 seed Harvard 4-1 in ECAC Championship Second Round; Lions to face either Yale in Sunday’s title match at 5 p.m.

NEW YORK—Columbia advanced to its second straight ECAC Championship title match as the Lions rallied for a 4-1 win over No. 1 seed Harvard Saturday afternoon at Dick Savitt Tennis Center. With the win, No. 4 seed Columbia advances to play No. 3 seed Yale in the ECAC Championship set for Sunday at 5 p.m. ET at Dick Savitt Tennis Center.

Columbia is in pursuit of its second consecutive and fourth all-time ECAC Championship. The Lions have won ECAC titles in 2014, 2016 and 2019. The last time the Lions hosted the ECAC Championships, they claimed the title in 2014. Columbia advanced to the second round with a 4-0 win over Brown.

On Saturday, Columbia took and early lead and never looked back. For the second straight day, junior Jennifer Kerr and first-year Shivani Amineni won a No. 3 doubles match as the Lions registered a 6-4 victory over Harvard's Mihaela Marculescu and Kayla Leschly. Kerr and Aminini opened up a 5-1 lead before Marculescu and Leschly battled off several match points to stay in the match. Columbia junior Paulina Ferrari and first-year Akanksha Bhan then clinched the point for the Lions with a 6-4 win at No. 1 doubles over Jenna Friedel and Sophia Ho.

Columbia quickly took control in singles. Kerr registered a relatively easy 6-1, 6-3 win over Harvard's Rachel Eason at No. 3 singles. Then first-year Julia Haynes won six straight games in the second set to take a 6-3, 6-3 decision at No. 6 singles over Harvard's Natahs Gonzalez. Haynes' victory gave the Lions a 3-0 lead with four matches left.

After Harvard's Mihaela Marculescu took a 6-3, 6-3 win over Columbia first-year Michelle Xu at No. 4 singles, Columbia's Sakar clinched the victory with a 7-5, 6-0 win over Harvard's Sophia Ho at No. 2 singles. Sakar battled back in the first set to notch a 7-5 victory, then dominated the second set.

With the victory, the Lions won their third consecutive match and improve to 5-2 overall in dual matches, while Harvard falls to 4-2 on the young season.

Columbia is hosting the ECAC Championship for the first time in six years. The ECAC Championship event runs Friday through Sunday and feature 12 matches over the three-day weekend. The teams are playing through a bracketed tournament featuring eight teams with championship and consolation brackets. Each team will end up playing three matches. Along with host Columbia, the field comprises of seven Ivy League teams including Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, and Yale, along with Massachusetts.

Columbia is hosting the ECAC Championship for the first time since 2014. Head Coach Ilene Weintraub and the Lions have won three ECAC titles in program history: as hosts in 2014, 2016 and last year in 2019. The Lions entered the weekend as the defending ECAC champions as they claimed the 2019 title with consecutive victories on three straight days over Yale (4-2), Penn (4-2) and Princeton (4-1).

2020 ECAC WOMEN'S INDOOR TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Feb. 7-9, 2020 | Dick Savitt Tennis Center | New York, N.Y.

Friday, February 7
Match 1: No. 1 seed Harvard 4, No. 8 seed Cornell 1
Match 2: No. 4 seed Columbia 4, No. 5 seed Brown 0
Match 3: No. 3 seed Yale 4, No. 6 Massachusetts 0
Match 4: No. 2 seed Penn 4, No. 7 Dartmouth 1

Saturday, February 8
Match 5: Brown 4, Cornell 0
Match 6: Dartmouth 4, Massachusetts 0
Match 7: Columbia 4, Harvard 1
March 8: Yale 4, Penn 1

Sunday, February 9
Match 9: Massachusetts vs. Cornell, 8 a.m.
Match 10: Dartmouth vs. Brown, 11 a.m.
Match 11: Harvard vs. Penn, 2 p.m.
March 12: Championship: Columbia vs. Yale, 5 p.m.

All matches to be played at Columbia's Dick Savitt Tennis Center