LEXINGTON, Va. (February 25, 2024) – The No. 20 Denison University women's tennis team wrapped up its stretch of four straight matches against fellow nationally-ranked teams to open up its 2024 season by playing at the W&L Invitational on Saturday and Sunday. During the first day of action on Saturday, the Big Red were swept 9-0 by No. 8 Johns Hopkins University in the morning session before falling 8-1 against No. 33 Christopher Newport University later that night. Then on Sunday, Denison again fell 9-0 against No. 25 Washington and Lee University.
The closest match in doubles against the eighth-ranked Blue Jays was
Caroline Kittle and
Maia Nowicki falling in a tiebreak, 8-7 (7-4), to Sydney Langer and Kamila Wong at No. 2 doubles. In singles,
Peyton Oda fell 6-1, 7-5 against Mary Beth Hurley in the top spot while
Dasha Chistyakova fell 6-2, 7-5 against Samantha Wang in the No. 3 position. At No. 5 singles, Nowicki won her first set 6-4 against Aubrey Zhou before falling 7-6 (7-5) in a tiebreak in the second set and losing 10-1 in her third-set super tiebreaker.
In the night session against CNU,
Elizabeth Hoo and Oda earned an 8-3 win over Megan Bauer and Kylie Schaefer at No. 3 doubles, but at No. 2 doubles, Kittle and
Caroline Lopez fell 8-6 against Mia Linam and Samantha Robertson in an effort to give the Big Red the lead. In singles, Nowicki lost another three-setter at the No. 5 spot, this time falling 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 against Robertson while Chistyakova fell in three sets as well, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 against Linam at No. 3 singles.
Lastly, Lopez and Chistyakova (No. 1 doubles) and Oda and Nowicki (No. 2 doubles) both fell 8-5 against the hosts from W&L while in singles, Lopez lost a third-set super tiebreaker 6-3, 2-6, 1-0 (10-7) against Margaret Carlton in the No. 4 spot.
Denison falls to 0-4 on the season while JHU improves to 6-1, CNU improves to 3-3, and W&L moves to a perfect 9-0. The Big Red are now 1-2 all-time against the Blue Jays after winning 5-2 to advance to the NCAA Division III Quarterfinals (Elite Eight) in 2010 and falling 5-1 in their last meeting during the seventh-place match of the 2012 ITA Indoor Tennis Championship. Denison is also now 0-2 against the Captains after dropping a 5-4 decision in the first-ever meeting between the two teams in 2022 while the match against W&L was the Big Red's first against the Generals since a 5-2 defeat in the third round of the NCAA Division III Championship in 2021.
Next up, Denison will head into conference play starting next month as the Big Red head to the College of Wooster at 3 p.m. on Friday, March 1, seeking their first win of the season.
