College Feature
Michigan Women Defeat Yale to Return to Team Indoor in Charlottesville
by
Colette Lewis, 30 January 2014
Share: | |
| | |
|
|
A new format and a key player's injury didn't keep the University of Michigan women from their customary trip to Charlottesville, Virginia in February. On Sunday, the Wolverines defeated Yale 4-0, advancing to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Team Indoor Championships for the fifth consecutive year.
The
Varsity Tennis Center in Ann Arbor hosted four teams over the cold and snowy weekend, with No. 11 Michigan defeating No. 54
Virginia Tech 6-1 in the first round, and No. 36 Yale taking out No. 28
Tulsa 4-3, with a match tiebreaker in lieu of a third set at No. 1 singles deciding it.
This season's ITA experimental formats are different for men and women, with the women opting for traditional scoring in both doubles and singles, but playing only one standard set for doubles and a match tiebreaker in lieu of a third set in singles. (The men are playing no-ad, with tiebreakers at 5-5 instead of 6-6, in singles and doubles).
While the match tiebreaker did not come into play in the final, its existence loomed over every match.
"It's definitely different," said Michigan's Emina Bektas, whose 7-6(6), 6-4 win over Yale's Madeleine Hamilton clinched the victory for the Wolverines. "You can be ahead the entire time in the match, slip up a little bit in a game, and boom, you can be in that breaker and lose. So you definitely have to keep focus a lot more, because you don't have an entire set to get yourself back into it."
After winning the doubles point, Michigan took two first sets 6-0, with Kristen Dodge blanking Amber Li at No. 6 and Sarah Lee shutting out Sherry Li at No. 2. But with a match tiebreaker possible, the dynamics differed from the best-of-three-sets format.
"It's really a little bit unnerving, to be honest," said Michigan head coach Ronni Bernstein, in her seventh year as coach of the Wolverines. "Kristy is up 6-0, 5-4 and in ten minutes it could go the other way, even with her totally dominating, I thought, the match. We're happy to get through here, because it easily could have been ten pointers going around."
Due to a shoulder injury, Michigan was playing without Ronit Yurovsky, ranked No. 20 and the Wolverines' No. 2 singles player, as well as a member of the nation's No. 11 doubles team. The injury required that Bernstein juggle her doubles lineup, but the new combinations came through.
About Diadem
College Content
at TennisRecruiting.net is sponsored by
Diadem.
Diadem
was founded in 2015 with a single goal in mind - develop the most
innovative, high-quality tennis products in the world to help players
maximize their performance. We found that the tennis industry had
become stagnant, with very few brands that were challenging the status
quo. With a team made up of former collegiate and professional players
and coaches, Diadem set out to develop new and exciting products that
catered to players of all levels looking to elevate their game.
Diadem is committed to supporting the growth of junior tennis in
America and across the globe. Our Dynasty Team sponsorship program is
unlike any junior tennis sponsorship program in the world. Beyond
providing high quality equipment at a great price point for junior
players we are continuously innovating to improve our players
experience with the sport and to help them accomplish their goals. We
give our athletes the "pro player treatment," to equip them with
racket setups that are tailored to their game. We leverage our
relationship with hundreds of college coaches across the country to
help our players take their game to the next level. We're continuously
evolving to better support our sponsored players from coast to coast!
Connect with Diadem on
Facebook,
Instagram,
YouTube,
TikTok
and
- or on their
website.