The Big Green (16-6, 3-4 Ivy) took the first match of the day when Adler and Georgiana Smyser '11 teamed up to defeat Agnes Sibilski and Samantha Gridley, 8-2, at No. 3 doubles.
The makeshift pair of Zak and Sarah Leonard '13 was overmatched by a pair of Crimson (43-7, 6-1 Ivy) freshmen at No. 2 doubles, causing Zak and Leonard to lose the match by a score of 8-2.
Dartmouth's No. 1 doubles duo of Winingham and Molly Scott '11 suffered a surprising upset at the hands of Harvard's Holly Cao and Samantha Rosekrans dropping the match by a score of 8-5 and securing Harvard the doubles point. This was Scott and Winingham's first loss to an unranked opponent this season.
"[Scott] and [Winingham] had a pretty good chance to go to nationals, but the last couple losses have really hurt them," head coach Robert Dallis said.
In single's play, three of the six matches finished quickly including Adler's defeat of Rosekrans in straight sets, 6-2 and 6-2. It was Adler's final match of her career.
"I just wanted to go out on my own terms," Adler said. "In the last two matches, I let it get to my head a little bit."
Scott and Leonard, however, could not feed off of Adler's momentum as both suffered quick straight-set losses. Scott lost to Cao by scores of 6-2 and 6-2 while Leonard dropped her match to freshman Hideko Tachibana, 6-3 and 6-0.
Smyser was able to grind out a three-set victory at No. 6 singles, winning her match by scores of 6-3, 3-6 and 6-3, to keep Dartmouth's hopes alive.
With Markovitz holding a comfortable lead over her opponent Sibilski, the outcome of the match depended upon the No. 3 matchup between Winingham and Harvard's Kristin Norton. Winingham dropped the first set, 7-5, after wasting a 5-4 lead by losing the last three games of the set.
In a second-set battle with the score tied at 5-5, Norton broke Winingham's service game and was one hold away from the victory. Winingham, however, responded by breaking in the next game, sending the set into a tiebreaker.
"It was really tough," Norton said. "I didn't want to go to three sets since I had already fought so hard to come back in the second set."
In the tiebreaker, neither player was ever ahead by more than two points. With Norton leading 6-4, Winingham saved two match points in a row.
"During the changeover, my coach asked me, What are you afraid of, have you never lost before?'" Winingham said. "I realized that this is just another match and I needed to be more aggressive."
With her Dartmouth tennis career about to conclude, Winingham saved two more match points and extended the tiebreaker to a 9-9 tie.
Norton took the next point relatively quickly. On what would be the match's final point, a long rally ended with the tennis ball sailing off the frame of Winingham's racquet and going out of bounds.
"If it hadn't been the last match, I probably would have just thought of it as another loss," Winingham said. "It was very emotional and I did not want to lose that match."
After shaking her opponent's hand, Winingham walked off the court to a minute-long standing ovation from the remaining crowd and buried her head into Adler's shoulder.
"During the tie-break, the whole team and I were thinking the same thing," Dallis said. "Please let her win this so we can play another hour of tennis."
Shortly after, Markovitz sealed her victory by scores of 6-2 and 6-4.
"After my match, we gave each other the look of we finished,'" Markovitz said. "Although we didn't reach our ultimate goal of winning the Ivies, we certainly got to build on the Dartmouth legacy."
