Tennis: No. 58 men improve to 3-0 in Ivy League, women upset No. 29 Yale

Senior Taylor Marable clinched the victory for the women against Penn’s Alexa Ely with two tie-breakers. Freshman Augie Bloom found himself in a similar pressure situation and fought through the third set to take the match 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.

“Watching Augie come through when we needed it to win that match gave us confidence heading into this [past] weekend that under those situations we have the tools to perform,” sophomore Matt Siow said.

Siow was one of the Tigers who clinched doubles and singles victories against Brown, along with sophomore Matija Pecotic. Siow won two out of the three singles matches to go to a third set against Brown’s Kendrick Au. He then beat his opponent 13-11 in the tiebreaker.

The Bears, however, clinched the doubles point with a pair of wins. Pecotic and freshman Dan Richardson rallied to notch straight set wins for Princeton, the latter of which clinched a 4-3 team victory.

The next day, the Tigers showed more of their strength against Yale. The Bulldogs took the doubles victories over Princeton, but the Tigers never lost sight of their goal and rallied in the singles matches.

With wins from Pecotic, Richardson and senior Alex Faust, Siow clinched the win against the Bulldogs. Siow outplayed his opponent, Erik Blumenkranz, winning 6-0 in the third set to finish off the victory for the visitors.

“This weekend, it was my turn to be put in some very close battles with matches on the line, and I am happy that I was able to come through for the team,” Siow said. “I think going forward, the matches are all going to be really close, but these 4-3 victories give us great confidence because three times the match was on the line and three times we came through with the win.”

Though No. 43 Brown defeated the women’s team by a score of 6-1 on Friday, the Tigers came back tough on Saturday afternoon to knock off No. 29 Yale by a score of 5-2.

Against Brown, junior Hilary Bartlett and senior Taylor Marable defeated their opponents in doubles, while junior Rachel Saiontz was the only Tiger to pick up singles points.

Despite the loss, the Tigers upset Yale the following day with wins from Bartlett, Marable, sophomore Monica Chow, Saiontz and freshman Katherine Flanigan. Saiontz’s victory in the singles was against a ranked opponent, Elizabeth Epstein, who is ranked 115th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s latest national top 125.

“Brown outplayed us on Friday, and I think a huge part of our win against Yale came from a desire not to be outplayed again,” Bartlett said. “We’ve been successful against Yale during Ivy season in the past, and we showed up ready to compete. Our win against Yale, the highest ranked Ivy at the moment, puts us back in the race for the Ivy League title. We’re looking to ride the momentum from such a great win into the last two weekends of Ivy season, and hopefully into a NCAA berth.”

Both teams will play Dartmouth and Harvard next weekend. The men’s team is at home while the women’s team will travel to New England.