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BY ERIKA DOYLE

In print | Published May 1, 2003

Excitement, jumbled nerves and opportunity. That pretty much describes last weekend for the Garnet women in the Centennial Conference Individual Championships at Haverford. Swarthmore sent its top three singles players and top two doubles teams to compete. Even without their number-one player, Anjani Reddy ‘04, Swarthmore was the only team to have three players reach the quarterfinals. Kristina Pao ’04 and Elli Suzuki ’06, the Tide’s number-two doubles team, made it all the way to the finals.

“Going into the tournament, we were all hoping to do the best we could. We prepared throughout the week in both doubles and singles, and it showed, for the most part,” Pao said.

Pao and Suzuki fell in the final round of the Centennial Conference Doubles Championship. “Kristina and I were really focused during our doubles. Again, we were unseeded and had nothing to lose, so we played every point aggressively,” Suzuki said. The duo fell to the defending champs from Washington College, Ne’ko Browder and Shoko Nakamura, 6-3, 6-0.

In doubles, partners rely on each other heavily for communication and strategy. Realizing her partner’s invaluable strengths, Suzuki said, “Kristina knows how to change strategies when we are down and how to communicate between crucial points. She is a reliable partner and an amazing player.”

Suzuki reached the semifinals of the singles tournament falling 6-0, 6-4 to Muhlenberg’s Gena Ross, who went on to win the singles championship. Reddy was absent from the tournament this year because she was taking the MCATs. As a result, she was unable to defend her two-time Conference Championship. Reddy did beat Ross in the regular season, and, according to head coach Jeremy Loomis, “Anjani had a very good chance to win it again.”

Due to Reddy’s absence, Suzuki was given the opportunity to enter the CC tournament. “I had no pressure, because I really had nothing to lose in the tournament. I played each match as if it were my last match and that kept my momentum going,” Suzuki said. She added that the CC tournament was a “great learning experience” because she was “able to improve as a player with the support of [her] coaches and teammates.”

The players found it difficult without the whole team there to encourage them while they competed. “Without the team, it was hard, because we’re used to the girls cheering and supporting each other during their matches,” Pao said.

Overall, the Garnet squad saw the tournament as “an opportunity for some of the players on the team to gauge their improvement from the beginning of the year without the pressure of a team match,” coach Loomis said. “It had no effect on our Centennial team standing and was simply a great way for the players in the top of the lineup to play against different opponents.”

The young Garnet squad looked back on the year as very memorable, full of necessary adjustments and well-deserved successes. With a new coach, the team was faced with “a new mentality and direction, with different expectations than the last coach,” according to Loomis.

“This team met and surpassed all my goals,” he added.

Moreover, the squad had to face an “infusion of lots of new faces and talented freshmen,” according to Loomis. With only one senior, the team was full of young faces and instilling team cohesion became a challenge, which they tackled with eager hearts.

The Garnet optimistically look ahead to their season next year. “We have everyone back next year except Katherine [Voll ‘03] and a great recruiting class, so we are really excited about the potential for the 2004 women’s tennis team,” Loomis said.

Even with a season full of accomplishments, the squad has not yet finished. The Garnet will be heading to regionals and will play Mary Washington in the first round this Saturday. “We definitely have a shot at nationals,” Pao said.

Washington and Lee, ranked number two in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, poses a worthy opponent, but the Garnet embrace the challenge with their rackets ready to play. “Though we played Washington and Lee earlier in the season, we’ve grown so much individually and even more as a team. I think it will be really interesting to compete against them again,” Pao said.

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