Women's Tennis Falls to Georgia in NCAA Opener

The Harvard women’s tennis team lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Georgia, 4-0, yesterday at the Hoke Sloan Tennis Center in Clemson, S.C. The No. 19 Bulldogs (13-8, 8-3 SEC) will move on to play Clemson in the second round, while the No. 39 Crimson (14-8, 6-1 Ivy) returns to Cambridge having made the national tournament for the first time since 2006.

“Just making it into NCAAs was one of our team goals at the beginning of the year,” sophomore Holly Cao said.

“We achieved our goal,” junior captain Samantha Rosekrans added. “As the underdog, we knew we had nothing to lose, so we wanted to have fun with it. We knew that the pressure was not on us.”

With this relaxed mindset, Harvard eyed an upset over the favored Bulldogs. But Georgia, coming off a loss to South Carolina in the SEC tournament quarterfinal, had no plans to give the Crimson its first NCAA win since 2005.

The Bulldogs took an early lead with two quick victories on the doubles courts to secure the opening point.

No. 8 Georgia duo Chelsey Gullickson and Nadja Gilchrist defeated the first-team All-Ivy pair of Cao and Rosekrans, 8-1, on the top doubles court.

“They were just better than us, and we weren’t able to close the gap,” Cao said.

At No. 3, Harvard junior Agnes Sibilski and sophomore Samantha Gridley lost by the same margin.

On the No. 2 court, the second-team All-Ivy duo of rookies Kristin Norton and Hideko Tachibana were leading their opponents, 5-4, when the doubles point was decided.

“It’s very rare that freshmen play to that height,” Rosekrans said. “Everyone is very impressed by them.”

In singles, the Bulldogs earned their second point at No. 5 with a 6-1, 6-1 win by Cameron Ellis over Sibilski. Georgia racked up its third point with a victory by Lara Fakhoury over freshman Alexandra Lehman by the same score.

At the brink of defeat, the Crimson fought to keep its season alive, but to no avail. At No. 3 Norton, who made the All-Ivy Second Team at singles, lost to Yvette Hyndman, 6-2, 6-3.

The other three matches did not play to completion.

“I think we did a pretty good job overall, said Cao. “It could have been easily 4-3. We just didn’t get to finish.”

Rosekrans won the only set of the day for Harvard with a 7-5 first-set victory at No. 4, and was leading, 3-1, when Georgia clinched.

No. 73 and unanimous first-team All-Ivy pick Cao lost her first set, 6-4, to No. 12 Gullickson on the No. 1 court, although she was leading, 5-2, in the second when play stopped.

“I played pretty well overall, but I think I could have hung in there more in the first set,” Cao said. “I always believe I can compete against the top players in the nation. It’s just unfortunate that the match was decided before I finished the second set.”

The unanimous Ivy League Rookie of the Year Tachibana played neck-and-neck with No. 48 Gilchrist before losing the first set in a tiebreak.

With the loss, the Crimson now faces the difficult task to improve upon this season’s performance in 2011.

“We are hoping to go into next year with the motivation to reach NCAAs again and hopefully win in the first round,” Rosekrans said.

—Staff writer Eric L. Michel can be reached at emichel@fas.harvard.edu.