The Fordham women’s tennis team kicked off their fall campaign this past weekend under a blue-gray September sky, with the team hosting their annual Fordham Invitational at the Hawthorn/Rooney Court.
The three-day competition was mostly comprised of local teams, with the Rams squaring off with the Knights of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Pirates of Seton Hall University, the Seahawks of Wagner College, the Red Foxes of Marist College and the Skyhawks of Stonehill College.
In my eyes, this weekend should be labeled as nothing but a huge success for this new look squad, as the glut of new transfers and freshman, plus some older faces, found themselves dominating the competition, posting a very impressive overall singles record of 19-3 and a phenomenal 11-2 overall doubles record.
This stellar performance was truly set into motion by a strong day one singles showing, with graduate students Demi Jhaveri and Franny Shea both opening their years up by dispatching their singles opponents with ease, not dropping a single game across their respective straight set 6-0, 6-0 victories.
Freshman Anlin Xie, Cindy Zhou and Julianne Nyugen likewise made their presence felt, all working straight set victories in their collegiate debuts. And while the team did briefly hit a speedbump during the doubles matches, unfortunately falling short in two of them, the Rams still managed to post an overall winning doubles record in the first round of doubles matches. Jhaveri and Shea teamed up to post a perfect 6-0 victory, while returning senior superstar Eleni Fasoula and graduate student Raffaela Alhach used their experience to surge to a 6-2 victory. Nguyen and Zhou rounded out their excellent debuts with a 6-3 victory.
Day two only saw the Rams build off and elevate their day one success, as the team won all four of their doubles matches this time around, three by a score of 6-1, while Fasoula and Alhach found a way to prevail in their tighter 6-4 clash. On the singles side, the team produced a dominant 7-1 record, with the Rams only dropping three sets as a team across their eight total matches.
Day three was more of the same, with the Rams once again flexing their superior talent on the way to an overall perfect day: a 7-0 total singles showing where everyone won in straight sets, plus by a 4-0 doubles record.
Four of these victories were flawless, with junior Lorraine Bergmann and Zhou both winning 6-0, 6-0 in their respective singles matches, while the doubles pairings of freshman Anlin Xie and senior transfer Rose Hu plus Jhaveri and Shea both cruised in 6-0 thrashings.
For a team that seemingly had so many question marks entering the season after losing so much of last year’s production, there simply could not have been a better way to start the 2023-24 campaign.
Everyone got in on the action, with every player, young or old, finding a way to make meaningful contributions to the overall dominance that the Rams displayed this past weekend.
Much of the credit has to go to coach Michael Sowter for this, as he undoubtedly had his team ready to defend the greystone confines of Fordham.
Now looking ahead, the Rams will travel upstate this coming weekend to play in the West Point Invitational hosted by a strong Army team.
This will certainly be the toughest test so far for the Rams in this very young season, but, if this past weekend proved anything, it was that this team has the talent to rise to the occasion.
