Harvard Ends Slide With Win Over UCF

The Harvard women’s tennis team ended its two-game losing streak, defeating the University of Central Florida (7-2) on Saturday in Orlando by a score of 6-1. With the win, the Crimson improved to 6-4 on the season.

The win was the first victory of the season for Harvard on an opponent’s court. The match also marked the first time the Crimson has played outdoors this year.

Harvard’s only two losses in the afternoon were at No. 6 singles and No. 3 doubles.

Still, the Knights kept the contest competitive, as half of the singles matches were decided in the third set.

Junior captain Samantha Rosekrans won in dominating fashion, winning in two sets by the score of 6-1, 6-4.

Most of the other matches, however, were much more back-and-forth. Crimson sophomore No. 84 Holly Cao rebounded after a weak second set to defeat No. 83 Jenny Frisell, 6-0, 1-6, 6-1, in the top position.

“Holly’s a fighter—­she probably got mad after the second set and just decided that she wasn’t going to lose any games. And when she gets mad at somebody...she can do whatever she wants,” sophomore Samantha Gridley said.

Cao was coming off of her first individual loss of the season against Illinois last Sunday.

Rosekrans and Cao, partners in the No. 1 doubles match, defeated the Central Florida team of Frisell and Katie Orletsky, 8-6, to help Harvard take the doubles point.

“It’s really nice to get that doubles win, because it really takes off the pressure going into singles,” Rosekrans said. “So that was a big victory.”

Orletsky picked up the Knight’s only singles victory of the day, defeating Gridley, 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.

“I started off down, and then came back and won a bunch of games in a row to win the first set,” Gridley said. “I ended up fighting back in the third set to five-all after being down, but then just got a little bit tight.”

The Crimson’s other ranked player, No. 113 freshman Hideko Tachibana, defeated Alexis Rodriguez, 6-4, 6-2, at No. 2.

Though Harvard rookie Sophie Chang swept her match against Allison Hodges, it was arguably the most competitive contest of the day. Chang had to win a deciding seventh game in both sets, including a tiebreak in the first set. Chang pulled the match out with a 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 win, despite trailing, 4-1, in each set.

“I really saw her fighting hard and staying really positive,” Gridley said. “That helped her pull through the match.”

Chang’s individual victory was her first since Feb. 14 against Princeton.

“Sophie wasn’t playing her best, but she managed to find a way,” Crimson coach Traci Green said. “All semester we’ve been working on trying to find a way, and today she found a way and also got a victory for the team.”

Freshman Kristin Norton, after a sound defeat at the hands of Andrea Yacaman in the first set, returned the favor in the next two, winning the match, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.

But it was the Central Florida fans who made the match particularly memorable.

“Norton had a really tough match, particularly with the fans—she faced a lot of different characters off the court, but she did a good job of rising up and not acting too emotionally,” Rosekrans said.

“The people kept telling us to go back to the library,” Gridley said, laughing. “Kristin got really, really pissed and just started winning.”

Norton, playing with Tachibana, also won in the No. 2 doubles match, defeating their Knight opponents, 8-3.

“I was really proud of the way we came together,” Rosekrans said. “We showed a lot of heart and...pretty much dominat[ed], so it was a really successful day.”