Fordham Women’s Tennis found themselves in the midst of a high-stakes tournament this past weekend, having traveled just a bit south to Manhattan in order to participate in the 2023 ITA Division I Women’s Northeast Regional Championship at Columbia University on Oct. 20.
This prestigious tournament supposedly features the strongest amongst those athletes who call the Northeast their home, with big-name institutions such as Seton Hall University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Rutgers University and Princeton University being just a selection of the renowned programs represented.
In terms of logistical structure, the playing field of the tournament was absolutely massive, with the singles side being composed of 112 total competitors and the doubles field being composed of 55 total teams. A good portion of this gargantuan field wore maroon, as Fordham had a glut of players qualify for the competition, including four players on the singles side and three duos on the doubles side.
Looking first at the singles portion of the tournament, Fordham’s performance on this side was characterized by some really high highs and some quite low lows. For instance, freshman Anlin Xie simply kept on rolling this past weekend, continuing to dominate her opponents during the infant stages of her young collegiate career. Elaborating on this, she kicked off the weekend with a commanding 6-0, 6-4 victory in the first round, following this up with a much tighter but nonetheless impressive, 6-0, 7-5, [10]-[8] win in an absolute slugfest against UPenn’s Eileen Wang in the second round. However, her strong run would unfortunately come to a close in the third round, as she would fall to Cornell University’s Michelle Ryndin.
Likewise finding herself in the win column this past weekend was senior Rose Hu, as she played herself into the third round on the back of a first round bye and a second round 6-2, 7(7)-6(4) triumph (like Xie, she would sadly go on to lose to her third round opponent). Fordham’s most impressive singles competitor this past weekend, however, was by far graduate student Raffaela Alhach, as she embodied pure domination throughout the three days of matches, using a first round bye and three subsequent straight-set victories to reach the quarterfinals and secure a berth in the ITA Northeast Super Regional Championships on Oct. 20. However, despite these rather successful runs, the Rams’ lowlight of the weekend may have been the disappointing performance of their normally dependable superstar senior Eleni Fasoula, as she shockingly fell in a grueling 6-4, 5-7, [7]-[10] first round battle against Drexel’s Isabel Cabrerizo for what is certainly her earliest exit in a tournament in a long time.
Turning now to the doubles portion of the weekend, the Rams encountered the same sort of varied levels of success that they encountered on the singles side. Starting with the strongest doubles performance, Hu and Xie masterfully played themselves into a Super Regionals spot, using a first round 8-2 victory over a pairing from Wagner College, a second round 8-5 victory over a Hofstra duo, a third round automatic bye due to an injury withdrawal and a 8-5 quarterfinals victory to secure a berth to play on the big stage on Oct. 20. Unfortunately, the extremely strong duo of Alhach and Fasoula could not find this same level of success, as Fasoula’s somewhat frustrating weekend only continued on the doubles side of the tournament when her and Alhach saw their doubles’ journey end with a 1-8 thrashing in the third round. Lastly, while Fordham’s third and final doubles pairing featured two players who did not participate in the singles flight, the team of graduate students Demi Jhaveri and Franny Shea still found themselves in the win column after just barely eking out a first round 8(7)-7(3) victory. Unfortunately, like Fasoula and Alhach, they would see their doubles campaign cut short after a single victory, suffering a 3-8 second round defeat to a strong Rutgers duo.
Overall, it was a rather successful weekend for the Rams despite some hiccups here and there, as the Rams managed to qualify both a singles player and a doubles pairing for the upcoming Super Regionals. While it remains to be seen whether or not the Rams will actually make noise in these upcoming high-stakes matches, there is something to be said about simply qualifying for them in the first place. This team should truly be proud of what they accomplished this past weekend considering all the questions surrounding the roster during the offseason.
