Against Penn (10-6, 2-3 Ivy) on Saturday, the Big Green women (8-7, 1-3 Ivy) got off to a slow start in doubles. Sarah Bessen '16 and Melissa Matsuoka '14 were serving up 7-4 30-all when Penn clinched the doubles point.
Singles didn't fare much better for the Big Green, as Suzy Tan '16 and Christina Danosi '13 brought Dartmouth the only two points of the day, both through hard-fought three-set victories.
"I think it says a lot about Suzy and Christina that they competed so well, even though the match had already been decided," Katherine Yau '16 said.
On Sunday, the Big Green women started strong start against Princeton (11-6, 3-2 Ivy), taking the critical doubles point. Yau and Okuda fell 8-0 against the No. 1 Princeton doubles team, but the Big Green No. 2 and No. 3 doubles teams stepped up, both breaking their opponents' serve at 7-6 to record 8-6 wins and consolidate the doubles point.
"After our recent matches, we were motivated to give it everything we had and leave it all on the court, and that starts in doubles," Bessen said. "Even though we struggled at number one, we had such good energy at two and three that we were able to feed off."
After a rock solid doubles performance, Dartmouth No. 3 Matsuoka provided the Big Green with a burst of energy early in singles, double-bageling her opponent before most second sets had entered their second game.
"Melissa played incredibly," Bessen said. "She hit insane backhands all day and set the tone in singles with her early win."
Princeton responded with wins at No. 5 and No. 6 singles, tying the match score up at 2-all and leaving Yau, Okuda, and Bessen to fight for the win. All three of their matches entered a third set after three and a half hours of play. Okuda fought off a match point down at 5-4 to take the second set 7-5 and force a third.
Bessen lost her third set, leaving the fate of the women's tennis team up to Yau and Okuda at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Okuda continued to ride on the momentum that came from fighting off a match point, and took her final set comfortably 6-3.
All eyes in the Boss Tennis Center turned to the No. 1 singles match, which was dead even in the third. Serving at 4-3, Yau missed a high forehand volley at 30-15. Lindsay Graff, the Princeton No. 1, capitalized on her chance, broke Yau's serve and consolidated the break with a hold of her own.
"At 4-3, I was up 30love, and I lost that game," Yau said. "At 4-all, I was up 40love and lost that game too. I was really nervous and really wanted to win for the team, but I knew I had to focus and take it game by game."
Yau served to stay in the match down 4-5. She won the first point, double faulted, and then won the next three. Both players held serve and the deciding match fittingly went to a tiebreaker.
"I was always serving to stay in the match, but I had a lot of confidence in my serving today," Yau said. "Even though I double faulted I didn't really freak out because I knew what I had to fix."
The tiebreaker stayed on serve until 4-all. Graff served and came into net off a deep approach shot to Katherine's backhand. Katherine ripped a cross court passing shot, which landed on the baseline, to give her the minibreak at 5-4.
"The tiebreaker was super nerve-wracking, but the team really helped me get through it," Yau said. "Whenever I won a point I would turn to them, and they gave me the energy to stay confident and composed."
After four and half hours, Katherine found herself two points away from securing victory for Dartmouth. She kept her composure and finished the match, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5).
"It feels really good to pull out a tight win over such a strong team," Yau said. "Princeton killed Penn, who we lost to on Saturday, and they are sitting at the top of the Ivy League."
On Saturday, the Dartmouth men's tennis team (9-11, 1-3 Ivy) fell 4-3 in a heartbreaker against Penn (9-9, 1-4 Ivy). The men continued their run of form in doubles from last weekend, taking the point with wins at No. 1 and No. 2, but were unable to group together three wins in singles.
After five of the six singles matches had been played, the match score was tied at 3-all, and Cameron Ghorbani '14 was locked in a tight three-set encounter to decide the match. Ghorbani won the first set in a tiebreaker, but dropped the next two sets 7-5, 6-4.
"It came down to Cam's match, and everyone was watching the third set," Brandon DeBot '14 said. "It was a really tough battle. It went back and forth and a couple points either way decided it."
On Sunday, the men fell 5-2 to Princeton (15-5, 4-1 Ivy). Every match in doubles was close, but Princeton came out with the point. Xander Centenari '13 and Debot fell 9-7 at No. 1 and Ghorbani and Chris Kipouras '15 fell 8-6 at No. 3 to give Princeton the point. Alexander de Chatellus '13 and Brendan Tannenbaum '16 were leading 7-6, but didn't finish their match.
"Today was a tough doubles point," DeBot said. "We played them really tight on a couple courts. We got a couple breaks, but then ended up giving them back and that cost us the point."
Kipouras and Ghorbani were the only two members of the Big Green to win their singles. Kipouras took his match in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, while Ghorbani rebounded from his third set loss on Saturday to win in third set tiebreaker, 6-4, 5-7, 10-8.
"Its one of those things where it came down to execution under pressure, and today we didn't do that as well as we would have liked to," Debot said.
Both teams are back in action against Yale University next weekend. The men will host the Bulldogs while the women will travel to New Haven, Conn., to face Yale on their own turf.
