Schnitter Cleans Up At Big Green Tourney

Stephanie Schnitter became the latest member of the women’s tennis team to collect a tournament title on Monday, as the sophomore no. 1 seed claimed the singles crown at the Big Green Invitational in Hanover, NH with a 6-3, 6-4 win over no. 2 Andreea Novaceanu of Buffalo.

Schnitter is the first Harvard woman to win the Big Green Invitational since the tournament’s beginning three years ago, and she did so by steamrolling the field without dropping a single set.

Her win is the third major victory and first singles triumph by a member of the Crimson this fall, after co-captains and doubles partners Elsa O’Riain and Melissa Anderson won the Cissie Leary Memorial Tournament and the ITA Eastern Regionals.

“Stephanie has certainly had a really good fall,” Harvard coach Gordon Graham said. “We could tell coming into the fall that she had really improved.”

Schnitter entered the Big Green Tournament off of an impressive run at the Eastern Regionals, in which she parlayed an unseeded invitation into a surprise trip to the Sweet 16, eventually losing to the tournament’s second seed.

After gaining the top ranking in the Big Green’s Singles Flight A, Schnitter made quick work of two opponents over the weekend to advance to the semifinals. In her first match on Monday, Schnitter defeated Stony Brook’s Anne Catherine Valle by a 6-3, 6-2 tally.

That set up her match with the sophomore second seed Novaceanu, whom Schnitter had little trouble with.

After a mostly quiet rookie campaign with Harvard, Schnitter has emerged as a force in 2005, finishing the fall season with an overall record of 13-4.

“She’s been working really hard at improving her game over the course of the fall,” Graham said. “She has a really good work ethic...and when you get a few good wins on top of that, it can only help to propel her onward into the spring.”

Junior Cindy Chu made it to the finals of the consolation Flight A singles bracket of the tournament.

Chu defeated Princeton’s Joanna Roth in a semifinal tiebreak, but could not get past Angela DiPastina of Ohio State in the final.

The team of Chu and freshman Catriona Stewart was the Crimson’s only entrant in the doubles draw.

The pair, seeded no. 2, advanced to the semifinals before again running into Ohio State. DiPastina and Sonia Ruzimovsky, the 3 seed, were able to knock off Chu and Stewart 8-3 and prevent the Crimson from sweeping both singles and doubles.

—Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer can be reached at cpeiffer@fas.harvard.edu.