This past weekend, the Georgetown men’s and women’s tennis teams hit the courts. Men’s tennis edged out two quality opponents, while the women’s team lost a difficult conference battle.
The two wins for the men were the team’s first and second of the season and were crucial victories to right the ship for the Hoyas as they head into more conference play. The winning matches were held in College Park, Md. over the weekend: On Friday, Feb. 8, the men’s team defeated its local rival George Washington University; they followed up their first victory of the season with another win over Xavier on Feb. 10. The Hoya women were blanked 0-4 by Xavier on Feb. 10.
In the GWU (2-1, 1-0 A10) match, Georgetown’s (2-3, 1-2 Big East) early win of the doubles point to start off the afternoon ultimately proved to be the deciding factor, as the Hoyas split the six singles matches. The Georgetown sophomore tag team of Rohan Kamdar and Connor Lee pulled away over their competition in an incredibly tight match by a score of 7-5.
Georgetown’s other doubles victory came from senior Michael Chen and sophomore Charlie Sharton who dominated from start to finish en route to a 6-1 victory. Afterwards, in singles play, Lee and Chen continued their winning streak as each won a decisive two-set match.
Sophomore Luke Ross also secured a key win during singles play, as he eked out a 6-4, 7-6 victory. Despite not getting any other wins, Georgetown received strong performances from Kamdar, who made each set close, and freshman Andrew Rozanov, who lost the third set despite dominating 6-1 in the second.
On Sunday, Georgetown had similar success against Xavier (1-5, 0-2), as Kamdar and Lee had another decisive doubles victory, and Rozanov and senior Will Sharton clinched the doubles point.
The Hoyas’ singles victories came from Kamdar in a tightly contested three-set battle; Rozanov, who won a tiebreak in the first set before closing the match with a clean second; and Ross, who bounced back admirably from losing the first set to win the next two in convincing fashion. The Hoyas finished with a 4-3 win.
These two wins helped Georgetown start 2-0 at home and rectify their season. They will look to get back to .500 against Longwood University on Feb. 14 at Yates Field House.
Later on Sunday, the Hoya women also took on the Xavier Musketeers. They, however, were not as successful, falling in a decisive 4-0 match.
Xavier took the doubles point, as the tag teams of sophomore Sofie Moenster and freshman Elena de Santis, as well as junior Anna Short and senior Cecilia Lynham lost. This left the match involving senior duo Risa Nakagawa and Sydney Goodson useless for determining the Hoyas’ fate.
While the final scores would not indicate as such, the singles matches showed more positive signs for the Hoyas. Moenster, Short and Lynham lost too early for the outcomes to be determined in the remaining matches because the earlier Hoya losses made it impossible for the team to win. However, those three matches involved some strong performances for the Hoyas.
When the matches were cut off, Goodson was locked in a 6-6 duel in her first set, while de Santis and Nakagawa were each in close starts of their second sets after getting strong 6-3 and 6-4 victories respectively in the first sets.
Led mainly by a strong crop of underclassmen, the women’s team has struggled thus far this season. However, with the exception of this loss to Xavier, the team has shown promise even in defeat during conference play. They beat Butler 5-2 on Jan. 25 and lost 4-3 to DePaul on Jan. 26.
The Georgetown women are also on campus Thursday, Feb. 14 to host Longwood University before traveling alongside the men to James Madison University over the weekend.
