PASADENA, Calif. — The Caltech Beavers women's tennis squad earned its first win of the young season in a home match against the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs Saturday afternoon.
The day started off well with Anna Tanaka (Honolulu, Hawaii / IMG) and Aoi Kunimoto (San Diego, Calif. / Rancho Bernardo) winning a nailbiter of a doubles match. The two other doubles matchups didn't go the Beavers' way and the Slugs claimed but they had plenty of room to make up for it in singles.
As many teams will come to learn this season, singles is valued significantly more from a score standpoint than doubles play and teams that dominate singles will be the best. Anika Arora (Fremont, Calif. / Mission San Jose) finished the first singles match for Caltech as she made quick work of her opponent on court 6. Anna Tanaka finished 2nd after her dominant win, 6-2, 6-1.
Hannah Ramsperger (Zürich, Switzerland / Realgymnasium Rämibühl Zürich) was the next after Tanaka to finish. She had a convincing win with identical scores as Tanaka against her opponent on court 4, giving the Beavers a 3-1 lead on the day. Biochemistry major Yoyo Benchetrit (Toronto, Ontario / St. Clements) won what ultimately was the deciding match, cooking against fellow senior Sara Beckman. After Benchetrit's 6-1 and 6-3 wins, the Beavers locked up the win with two singles matches still left to go. The two teams would trade those matches, earning the Beavers a 5-2 win.
The triumph was Head Coach Nyssa Peele's first coaching win with the Beavers. "I am just so proud of our team and the way we responded to adversity," Peele said, "It's been a tough preseason without a lot of court time and having to hold practices in the gym, and it would have been easy to make excuses, especially after falling behind after doubles. But we showed a lot of maturity with the way we responded, and we earned a big DIII win. I'm really happy with our performance and hope we build off it as we get ready for the SCIAC matches ahead."
The squad looks forward to facing off against Mary Washington on the Caltech Tennis Courts on Tuesday March 4.
