Last weekend, the Fordham women’s tennis team traveled to sunny Florida where they participated in the Shark Bite Invitational. This three-day event wrapped up the team’s fall schedule. After multiple consecutive weeks of travel for tournaments, they receive a much-needed break until play resumes in January. In this tournament, the team competed against three different universities, hailing from Nova Southwestern University (NSU), the University of Tampa and St. Thomas University.

Over the course of the weekend, Fordham had six of their eight rostered players compete. Although this was a great opportunity for some of the younger players to get more practice and reps, notable absentees from this event included senior Avery Aude and graduate student Valeriya Deminova. 

At the invitational, sophomore Lorraine Bergmann finished with the highest combined win total of any individual player on the team, securing the victory in four of the six matches she participated in. Bergmann shined above the rest, first defeating Fatima Bizhukova from NSU on Friday in three sets. Later that day, Bergmann, along with freshman Sofie Siem, won in doubles against NSU when they outplayed Julie Razafindranaly and Eva Goncharov 6-4. This was a big win for the team’s youth, as the two youngest players on Fordham’s roster managed to find success against a doubles duo that included a graduate student. 

On day two, Fordham struggled in five of their six singles matches, with the only win coming from the graduate student Lindsay Hung when she defeated senior Natalie Espinal from NSU 6-3, 6-3. However, in Saturday’s doubles matches, the young and promising duo of Bergmann and Siem again came up big when they took down St. Thomas’ sophomore duo of Lauren Seeman and Maria Tonito 6-3.

On Sunday, the team played their last matches before beginning their two-month break. Unfortunately, in the singles matches it was more of the same with the only win coming from junior Eleni Fasoula when she won against NSU’s Kayla Solagnier. Later in doubles, Bergmann and Siem won for the third time as partners in this tournament as they succeeded against  Tampa’s Tatiana Harrelson and Tal Zinn. Fasoula and senior Rachelle Yang also won a doubles match, taking down Kashmira Monohar and Karolina Snita from NSU 6-0.

Without Aude and Deminova throughout this tournament, the team did understandably struggle overall. However, this opened up more opportunities for the younger players, and they delivered when called on. Another notable observation includes graduate student Carlota Casasampere Escoda only playing in three matches, the lowest number of anybody on the team this weekend. It appears head coach Mike Sowter wanted to see more of his younger players and test out different options before they begin one-on-one play against other colleges in January. The Bergmann and Siem combination in doubles appeared to be something to build on in the future after their 3-0 record together in this tournament as partners. They will continue to try different lineups and techniques until they take on Drexel University in January.