ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy women's tennis team grabbed both doubles draw crowns and had a singles draw winner this weekend, as the Midshipmen wrapped up the three-day Navy Blue and Gold Invitational on Sunday afternoon at the Brigade Sports Complex.
 
Sophomore Emily Tannenbaum and junior Stella Ribaudo captured the "A" doubles championship, while senior captain Jillian Taggart and freshman Christina Danford ended up on top of the "B" doubles draw and freshman Sia Chaudry was able to defeat Taggart in the "B" singles finals.

"We are very proud of our showing this weekend, particularly coming off the back end of a tough academic week," said head coach Keith Puryear. "While we had several individual winners and several others in the finals, this was a team effort. Our goal for the fall goes beyond the results we experienced. We realize that we must continue to improve, using our tournament play as feedback for continued improvement."

In the top singles draw, Tannenbaum knocked off two-straight players from William & Mary to claim the championship, beating Sofiya Kuzina (6-0, 6-1) and Elisa Van Meeteren (6-1, 6-2), before losing to their teammate Hedda Gurholt in the finals (6-4, 6-2). Ribaudo suffered a first-round loss in the same draw to Fairleigh Dickinson's Anastasia Lim (6-0, 6-1), but rebounded with wins over Villanova's Emma Brogan (4-2, 5-3) and Maggie Gehrig (6-1, 6-4) to win the consolation bracket.
 
Three Mids were in the "B" singles draw and all three picked up wins in their first-round matches, with sophomore Sylvia Eklund beating Georgetown's McHaley Ho (6-3, 6-2) before falling in the quarterfinals to William & Mary's Emma Fernald (6-3, 6-4). Taggart's first-round win was over Villanova's Valieriia Kornieva (6-3, 2-6, 10-7), going on to beat the Tribe's Alexandra Vesikallio (6-0, 6-2) and UNCW's Eda Arli (2-6, 6-2, 10-5) before drawing Chaudry in the finals. For Chaudry, she went through UNCW's Gabbie Glickstein (6-2, 7-5), William & Mary's Ine Stange (6-3, 6-0) and Fernald (3-6, 6-0, 10-2) to get to Taggart, with Chaudry winning the all-Navy final (6-4, 6-3).
 
The "C" singles draw saw sophomore Kate Lee lose her first-round match to FDU's Valentina Silva (6-3, 6-2) and then fall to William & Mary's Yaelle Vaissaud in the consolation semifinals (4-0, 4-2), while fellow sophomore Parvathi Shanker lost to Villanova's Bella Steffan in the quarterfinals (6-1, 3-6, 10-6), defeated the Tribe's Alisia Manolescu in the consolation semis (0-4, 4-2, 10-6) and then dropped the consolation finals to Vaissaud (3-6, 6-1, 10-4).
 
A pair of freshmen were in the "D" singles flight, as Hanna Elks Smith got wins over Villanova's Savie Seebald (5-7, 6-4, 10-5) and Taylor Gould (6-3, 1-6, 10-4) to reach the main finals, where she was defeated by UNCW's Lauren Robbins (6-3, 6-1). Danford was also in the flight, as she lost her first match to FDU's Madeline Graber (6-3, 5-7, 10-6) but beat Villanova's Chloe Floyd in the consolation semifinals (4-1, 5-3) before falling to Seebald in the consolation finals (4-6, 6-1, 10-2).
 
In the "A" doubles draw, the pairing of Ribaudo and Tannenbaum rattled off wins over Gehrig and her Villanova teammate Emi Callahan (6-2), Gurholt and Stange (6-2) and the UNCW duo of Lauren Gish and Stela Joksimovic (6-4) to reach the championship match, where the Mids defeated the pairing of Georgetown's Avantika Willy and William & Mary's Alisia Manolescu (6-4).
 
The "B" doubles draw started out with three Navy pairings, as Eklund and Lee beat FDU's Gauri Bhagia and Amina Lasheen in the first round (7-5) before dropping a quarterfinal match to Vaissaud and her Tribe teammate Emma Pell (6-3). For Chaudry and Shanker, the duo lost their opening match to Villanova's Bella Steffen and Amanda Rivera-Gonzales (7-6 [4]), but got two-straight wins to claim the consolation bracket by beating Bhagia and Lasheen (walkover) and the William & Mary duo of Vesikallio and Kensie Cricchio (6-3). Danford and Taggart won their crown by going through the pairings of Villanova's Flyod and Seebald (6-4), the Tribe's Vesikallio and Cricchio (6-1) and Villanova's Gould and Caitlin Fisher (6-1) before knocking off the Georgetown duo of McHaley Ho and Agata Mikos (6-1).
 
Navy continues the season next weekend at the San Diego Veteran's Tennis Classic, as Eklund, Ribaudo, Tannenbaum and Casey Accola will head to California on Oct. 7-9 to face competition from the University of San Diego, Fresno State and Arizona.