Women's Tennis Falls to Stanford, Ending Historic Season

"All good things must come to an end." So said Geoffrey Chaucer. Sort of. Turns out he didn't really write that. He wrote something similar. But he spoke that funny 14th century unamerican English. So it was weirder and written basically backwards.

But I digress.

If Chaucer were a fan of U.Va. women's tennis (and I see no reason why he would not have been), something similar to those words would undoubtedly have made his latest work, The Snyder Tales where he chronicles the amazing adventures of our tennis teams. Because unfortunately, this good run had to come to an end.

I think I might have just digressed again. Anyhoo...

The Cavalier women's tennis team fell to Stanford 4-2 in their first-ever appearance in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. They finish their historic season with their best ever season record of 24-6.

The Cardinal took the early lead, winning the doubles point with victories at #1 (8-2) and #2 (8-5). Virginia kept it close by winning at #2 doubles (8-2).

Stanford doubled their lead with a 4 & 1 straight set victory at #4 singles over freshman Rachel Pierson. But the Cavaliers came storming back to tie the match at 2-all. Sophomore Danielle Collins won in straight sets 4 & 2 at #2 singles, followed quickly by classmate Maci Epstein, who won 7-6(5), 6-3 at #5 singles.

But with three matches remaining and both squads needing to win 2 of them in order to clinch the victory, Virginia just couldn't do quite enough to eek out the win.

Senior Caryssa Peretz fell at #6 singles 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 to Stanford's Caroline Doyle. At #3 singles, sophomore Stephanie Nauta dropped a hard fought straight set match 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4) to Carol Zhao.

Sophomore Julia Elbaba, playing at #1 singles against the #3 ranked Kristie Ahn (Elbaba is ranked #4) led one set to zero (7-5, 4-4) when play was halted.

While the season is over for the team, the individual championships are still left to be decided and four Cavaliers will compete in those. Collins, Elbaba, Nauta and Pierson will all represent Virginia in the NCAA individual championships. Those competitions begin on Wednesday.