BLACKSBURG, Va. – The Navy women's tennis team finished its three-day stay at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Atlantic Regional on Saturday, completing 12 singles matches and four doubles contests over the three days at Virginia Tech's Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center.
With four Midshipmen making the trek to the ITA Regional, Navy went a combined 6-6 in singles play and 1-3 in doubles action.
Three Mids opened play on Thursday with the singles qualifying rounds, as all three won their first matches before losing in the second round. Freshman
Sia Chaudry knocked off George Washington's Lindsay Thompson in two sets, 6-3, 6-4, to start the tournament, but fell to Maryland's Mary Brumfeld after pushing the second set to a tiebreaker, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7). For senior
Casey Accola, she beat Karina Rizvanova of Longwood by a 6-2, 6-3 score before dropping a 6-3, 6-2 showdown with James Madison's Daniela Voloh, while junior
Stella Ribaudo grabbed a 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 10-6 victory over Ashley Fitz-Patrick of George Mason before falling against Virginia Tech's Charlotte Cartledge, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).
Singles action continued with the main draw starting on Friday, where sophomore
Emily Tannenbaum picked up a round-of-64 win over Delaware's Adel-Byanu Abidullina, 6-4, 6-2. Unfortunately, the Midshipman lost her next match to JMU's Ines Oliveira by a score of 6-4, 6-4 to send her to the consolation draw.
Friday saw the start of doubles play as well, as Accola and Tannenbaum opened against VCU's Victoria Matasova and Yelizaveta Karlova in the round-of-64, with the VCU duo winning by an 8-5 score. The other Navy pairing of Ribaudo and Chaudry did not fare better, as the Mids dropped an 8-1 decision against Liberty's Marina Davtyan and Esther Lovato.
The Mids closed out the weekend on Saturday with two more doubles matches before playing a last round of singles matches. In the doubles showdowns, Accola and Tannenbaum won a 7-5 match over GMU's Paige La and Taylor Garcia, while Chaudry and Ribaudo were on the losing end of a 7-6 (7-4) match against Radford's Emily Brandow and Julia Abrams.
Saturday's singles action had Tannenbaum defeat Sofiya Kuzina of William & Mary, 6-2, 6-1 in the consolation bracket, while Accola beat Richmond's Carly Cohen in an extra match, 7-5, 6-4. Chaudry and Ribaudo both had extra matches as well, with Chaudry falling to Matasova, 6-4, 6-1, and Ribaudo losing a three-setter to Delaware's Toni Nelson, 2-6, 7-5, 10-7.
"It was a good regional championship for us," said head coach
Keith Puryear. "Each of our four participants got a singles win and I feel we learned a lot from the experience. While good, it could have been better. I feel like we could become one of the top teams in our region if we continue to work hard and work smart the rest of this fall and throughout the spring. In this event, there were definitely opportunities that we left on the table, and in order to continue to grow and improve we must do the little things needed to consistently capitalize when presented."
Navy closes out the fall schedule next weekend, Oct. 28-29, at the Elon Invite in Elon, N.C.
