Fordham Women’s Tennis has had its bouts with inconsistency as the 2024 spring season nears its midpoint; its win-one-lose-one trend continued this Saturday when the team came up short in a competitive showing against Brown University.
The road-warrior Rams, who have now played just one home match in nine games, found themselves trekking to Providence, R.I., to play the Bears of Brown University. The club dismantled an Atlantic 10 rival, George Washington University, in their lone home match a week prior, but found themselves in the Bears’ den, where their hosts are amidst a four-match homestand.
The Rams, who have struggled in doubles play this season, saw their team doubles record fall to 2-7 as Brown took all three matches in a single set. Notably, these matches were hotly contested, with the senior tandem of Rose Hu plus Eleni Fasoula and the duo of freshman Julianne Nguyen plus graduate student Franny Shea at #2 and #3 doubles, respectively, posting 4-6 losses.
Finding themselves in a not-so-unfamiliar one-point hole, the Rams did their best to scratch back at the Bears. Fordham dealt a blow early, taking two of the first three singles matches to wrap: A-10 preseason all-conference star freshman Anlin Xie persevered in a two-set battle (6-3, 7-5) in third singles, while Cindy Zhou captured a commanding win (6-2, 6-4) at fourth. It was each player’s fourth singles victory this year, tied for the most on the team.
Brown managed to stem Fordham’s momentum, though and snagged each of the final three matches. At both second and fifth singles, the Bears needed three sets to win. Hu — another preseason all-conference electee — fell to a one-love hole by going down 4-6, only to storm back with a 7-5 second-set win. However, in the bridge set, it was the Bears’ Ali Benedetto who eked out a 6-4 win. Meanwhile, Fasoula managed to fall in even more tragic circumstances. Much like Hu, Fasoula lost her first set, this one by a 3-6 score. The longtime Ram clawed back in the second set, snatching a 6-4 win; it took a 7-10 third set tiebreaker for Brown’s Addison Ahlstrom to earn her team a point.
Brown’s coach, Lucie Schmidhauser, commended Fordham’s fight, noting that “in singles, almost every match was extremely competitive.” Though Fordham’s head coach Michael Sowter’s squad didn’t get the result they wanted, ultimately falling 2-5, it was likely their best performance in a loss all year. Likely discontented with moral victories, the now 4-5 Rams hope to even their record once more this afternoon when they take on Queens College in Flushing, N.Y. From there, the crew will take a short road trip to Port Washington, N.Y., to face off against Long Island University.
It’s been an up-and-down season for these Rams from an overall record standpoint, but their undying moxie in losses and unrelenting domination thus far in A-10 play should leave folks confident that this team is gearing up for another conference championship run.
