Ladies End Season Strong

After a rough start, the Ladies tennis team managed some solid performances at last weekend’s four-day Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Regional Tournament in St. Louis.

In the singles main draw, Heather Fantry ’16, Taylor Diffley ’16 and Amanda Polster ’13 failed to clear the round of 128. But it wasn’t all bad for the Ladies. Lydia Winkler ’13, bagled Webster University’s Mackenzie Wilder in her opening match and cruised past DePauw’s Hannah Meyer 6-2, 6-0 in her second before falling to the tournament’s fifth seed, Alex Marcell of Denison, on day two’s round of 32.

On the doubles side, Polster and Madison Hoffman ’16 comfortably advanced to the third round after an 8-5 win in the first round and an 8-4 victory in the second. In the third round, however, the tournament’s three-seed duo, a team from DePauw, stopped the Ladies’ run.

Despite the disappointing showing in the main draw, the Ladies  garnered some decisive wins in the consolation bracket. Fantry and Diffley advanced to the semifinals, where they faced each other: Diffley won 6-0, 6-0.  

“When I realized I had to play someone I train with all the time and who’s on my team, I thought it was going to be hard to be as competitive as I usually am,” Diffley said. “But once I stepped onto the court, I realized I was just overthinking it, because at the end of the day one of us had to come out as the winner, so I knew I had to just act like it was any other match.”

Polster also advanced to the semifinal round, but she lost to DePauw’s Taylor Mahr 6-3, 4-6, 1-0. “I reached my goal of doing as well as I did in the ITA my sophomore year,” Polster said.

In that tournament, she fell to a player from Denison 6-1, 6-1 in the main draw’s round of 32.

This tournament concludes the Ladies’ fall season, and they’ll have some time off until their formal season begins in February.

“It is … important for team building to meet new players at Kenyon and develop a schedule in preparation for the intense spring season,” Polster said.

“The fall acts as a precursor for the core of our season in the spring.”

It is also a time for building confidence. “I couldn’t imagine not having a fall season because then my first match would have … been a team match that counted toward our record,” Diffley said. “That would be a lot of pressure.

“I can’t wait to play matches as a team opposed to the individual match play in our fall tournaments,” Diffley said. “I think it’s going to be a very successful season.”