This past weekend the Fordham women’s tennis team traveled upstate to play Marist College at Life Time Athletic in Harrison, N.Y. This statement win marks the team’s first of 2023 and the spring season. This Sunday was an encouraging sight for the Rams, as they had many key individual performances as they moved on to 1-1 for the year.

The stars of this week’s match can be awarded to not only one or two players, but the entire team. Going 8-1 in total matches, and only half of the singles matches going to three sets, this event could truly be considered a thrashing for a Marist team that had already lost 7-0 in their previous match against St. John’s University. While we are used to seeing veterans like graduate students Valeriya Deminova, Carlota Casasampere Escoda and Lindsay Hung perform at a high level and win their matches in the past, it was extremely promising to see some of the younger players including freshman Sofie Siem and sophomore Lorraine Bergmann combine to win their doubles match against older Marist opponents. The only loss of the day for Fordham came in a doubles match consisting of Eleni Fasoula and Rachelle Yang where they narrowly dropped the match by a score of 6-3.

Overall, this was a big win for the team. Women’s tennis will travel to St. Bonaventure University this week and take on the Bonnies this Friday at 4 p.m. This game will be the first game in conference play of the year, and the only Atlantic 10 team they will play until April when they travel to University of Richmond. St. Bonaventure, currently 1-1, has had a poor women’s program in recent history, with no winning seasons since  2011-12. Their dismal finishes can be highlighted by a 3-17 record in 2012-13 and an awful 1-19 record in 2017-18. It remains to be seen if this year’s Bonnies team will put up more of a fight than in years past, but Fordham should definitely be gunning to pick up an important victory to kickstart a winning season.