PASADENA, Calif. – Caltech's women's tennis team faced off against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges Wednesday night, taking on the No. 1 team in the ITA West Region in a rare nighttime home match.
The visiting Athenas showed no mercy but the Beavers played their game and came away with positive results, culminating in a shocker in the last match to finish as senior
Emily Zhang (Sharon, Mass. / Sharon) won Singles #1 in a tiebreak after splitting sets.
"Growth and development are a process," Head Coach
Benay Weintraub said. "It takes commitment and time to see all the pieces come together. We stepped up and pushed CMS to the limit."
Zhang entered Court 1 to face CMS's Alisha Chulani, who earned a national No. 21 ranking last November, currently sits at No. 7 spot in the region for singles play and held an unblemished 10-0 record in dual matches this season. Chulani quickly claimed the first set by a 6-2 score, but Zhang held pace in the second set as Chulani was never more than a game ahead before seeing another tied score. Zhang then took the lead at 5-4 and came out of the break to claim the set by a 6-4 margin, setting the stage for a ten-point tiebreak.
The two traded points for the first four rallies before Chulani raced ahead to a 9-3 lead, but then Zhang fought off six match points in a row to tie the score at 9-9, heading into the break with all the momentum. She then won three of the next four rallies to win 12-10, denying the Athenas a sweep for the
second year in a row.
Other highlights came from first doubles, where juniors
Yoyo Benchetrit (Toronto / St. Clements) and
Anika Arora (Fremont, Calif. / Mission San Jose) picked up four games against the No. 1 doubles partnership in the region. Arora later picked up seven games in third singles against Sena Selby, who ranked No. 38 in the nation in the fall. First-year
Anna Tanaka (Honolulu / IMG Academy) also won six games against her #6 Singles rival.
The Beavers will return to their home courts this Friday and Saturday at 3 p.m. both days as part of
Spring 2024 Orange Out.
