The Dartmouth women's tennis team lost two matches in its final home weekend of the year, falling 7-0 in contests against Ivy powerhouses Penn and Princeton.
Penn entered Friday's match at Boss Tennis Center as the No. 39 team in the nation, as well as the defending Ivy League champions. The powerful Quakers swept both singles and doubles against the Big Green.
Evie Stevens, playing at No. 6 singles, provided the firmest test for the visiting Quakers on the afternoon. After dropping the first set 6-1 and falling behind in the second frame 3-0 to Penn's Michelle Yeh, Stevens seemed to be out of the match.
However, the Massachusetts native clawed back, and eventually claimed a 6-5 advantage in the second set. Stevens managed to save two match points in that set before ultimately succumbing in a tiebreaker that ended a hard-fought encounter.
In doubles, Penn collected all three matches by the score of 8-2, and the Quakers won all six singles contests in straight sets.
The Big Green moved outside to the Topliff Courts on Saturday to face Princeton, but unfortunately found a similarly daunting opponent in a tough Tigers team. Nonetheless, the Dartmouth lady racketeers provided some inspired efforts in what was their final home match of the season.
While Princeton took the trio of doubles matches, the No. 2 pairing of Jayme Ahmed '05 and Katie Jaxheimer '06 nearly put a dent in the Tigers' doubles domination. The match was tight throughout, and Jaxheimer impressively held her serve at 5-6 to even the contest at six games apiece.
However, despite Jaxheimer's solid net play and Ahmed's pinpoint passing shots, the Princeton pairing of Avantika Bhargava and Mateya McCoy secured the final two games and prevailed 8-6.
The highlights of the singles competition came from the stirring play of Ahmed at No. 1 and Arden Fredeking '04 at No. 4.
Ahmed started slowly versus Kavitha Krishnamurthy as the Tigers' top player won the opening set 6-2. Ahmed roared back with an excellent set of tennis to take the second frame by the score of 6-4 to level the match before eventually dropping a third-set super-breaker.
Fredeking supplied another outstanding performance in her matchup against Stephanie Berg. The match could not have been much closer, as Fredeking kept pace with her resilient opponent with a constant attack of deep, powerful groundstrokes. In the end, the Big Green suffered another heartbreaking defeat, as Berg claimed victory by the score of 7-5, 7-6.
"Penn and Princeton were both challenging teams, but we prepared for the matches well and there were a few close matches through the lineup," Ahmed said.
"We've worked hard all season and improved our games tremendously. So we're looking forward to Yale where we can give it our all for the last match of the year."
Now standing at 8-13 overall and 1-5 in the Ancient Eight, the Big Green women's tennis team finishes its season against Yale in New Haven, Conn., on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
