The Georgetown women’s tennis team competed in the Navy Fall Invitational against a vast slate of opponents in Annapolis, Md., last weekend. Georgetown had a wide variety of performances, ranging from losing to championship performances.
The Navy Fall Invitational was the Hoyas’ second tournament of the season, having competed in the Bedford Cup from Sept. 13 to 16. The Hoyas had a few semifinal appearances at the Bedford Cup in both singles and doubles, and junior Sophie Moenster advanced to the finals of the French Open Singles Draw.
In doubles matches, the Hoyas were unable to advance past the quarterfinals, but were not without some success in the earlier rounds.
In the A bracket, sophomore Brooke Murphy and her partner, freshman Agata Mikos, were unable to win in the first round or their backdrop match against Navy. Senior Anna Short and freshman Olivia Ashton were able to find more success. Despite losing their first match, they were able to advance to the consolation finals before losing, in a very close match to Navy, 7-6(4). Finally, the pair of freshman Carmen Aizpurua and sophomore Elena De Santis were able to advance past the first round before losing in the quarterfinals 6-4.
In singles competition, the Hoyas accumulated many more wins than in doubles. In the A bracket, Mikos won her first match handily, winning two straight sets 6-1 before losing in the quarterfinals. Mikos then went on to win her consolation match 8-4. Moenster was unable to play because of an illness, so both of her matches were walkovers, meaning she did not even need to play in order to record those two victories.
The Hoyas’ most victorious flight of the whole competition was the singles B bracket. De Santis and Ashton both won their first three matches and then competed in the championship match. De Santis was able to beat her fellow Hoya 6-3, 6-4, to win the bracket. As two of 14 competitors in this bracket, the Hoyas bested the competition to the point that they only had teammates standing in their way of their success.
In the singles C bracket, Georgetown again had to deal with illnesses but managed to still have some success. Just like Moenster, Aizpurua was unable to compete because of sickness, making her match a walkover. However, Short was able to win her first match before being eliminated in the quarterfinals. Finally, in the singles D bracket, Murphy was unable to get a win in her first-round matchup or the back draw, but did win her consolation match after her opponent went down with an injury.
The Hoyas’ next competition will be at Intercollegiate Tennis Association regionals in Blacksburg, Va., starting Oct. 25. At last year’s performance, only one Hoya, Risa Nakagawa (SFS ’19), advanced to the round of 32. Only two members of the current team competed at ITA regionals last year, De Santis and Moenster. Moenster was able to pick up a win in the back draw of the singles matches, but De Santis was unable to win her back draw match, though she extended the match to three sets.
