By Allison Grande '08

With their season nearing an end, the 2007 Sarah Lawrence women's tennis team has accumulated a 5-1 conference record to clinch second place in the Hudson Valley Women's Athletic Conference (HVWAC). During the course of this satisfying tennis campaign Coach Vanessa Chu —along with assistant Dan Bretl— has seen tremendous growth and consistent performances from all eleven members of the squad.

At no time has this growth and consistency been more evident than when Sarah Lawrence hosted St. Joseph's-Brooklyn on October 18th as the Gryphons turned in arguably their most impressive performance of this already remarkable season.

With the team already missing their top two players because of October Study Days and with two other team members falling ill during their singles matches, the remaining seven members needed to step up to help Sarah Lawrence to victory.

After dropping three of their first four singles matches, the team found themselves in the most undesirable position of needing to win four of their final five matches in order to claim the conference tussle. The final two singles players, sophomore Carlie Bentley and junior Alex Pauline, won their matches 10-5 and 10-3, respectively. The #3 doubles team of senior Catie Miller and sophomore Emily Zemba battled back valiantly in their doubles match but ultimately fell short 8-5.

With no losses left to spare, the last two doubles matches began on the two lower courts." In the #1 doubles match, sophomores Bentley and Danielle Saporta fell behind 5-3, making coaches and fans alike a little nervous. However, in a blink of an eye, the pair was suddenly winning 6-5 and went on to win the match 8-6.

On the far court, the #2 doubles team of sophomore Sofia Voltin and first year Tatiana Trofimchuck jumped out to an early lead but got momentarily rattled by Brooklyn's reactions on the court as their opponent battled back to tie the game at seven and force a tiebreaker. After nearly three hours of competition, the match came down to the tiebreaker. Following a short consultation to confirm the rules of the tie-break, the Sarah Lawrence duo took the overtime game 7-1 to earn the hard-fought victory in their final conference match of the season. 

After a long, strange night of competition, Head Coach Vanessa Chu could not have been happier with the resilience her team showed or the results of their play. "You guys totally pulled through, and I'm so proud of all of you," Chu said, adding, "I don't think you could have stressed Dan and me out anymore than today, but it ended happily, and I'm so glad it did." Assistant Coach Bretl added that the matches were "by far easily the best of the season in terms of pulling through and battling back."

Although all the players have turned in impressive performances throughout the season, two players have already received conference honors, with Trofimchuck rewarded with the Rookie of the Week accolade and first year Sarah Levine grabbing an honor roll mention for conference Player of the Week.

With only one regular season non-conference match remaining, the team hopes to build on this strong play and plans to use the next week to fine-tune their skills in preparation for the HVWAC tournament on Saturday, October 27 at the National Tennis Center in Flushing. Given their play in the past few weeks the team has high expectations for the tournament as they hope to climb their conference ladder, and surpass the defending champs and undefeated Cooper Union, to complete their highly successful season with a HVWAC championship.