Sports
Women’s tennis travels to ITA Championships: Arenson, Khanna and Schoning compete in singles
By Patrick English '15
September 27, 2012
Last weekend, the women’s tennis team sent three players to the ITA Northeast Regional Championships at William Smith College. Sixty-four of the best college tennis players from about twenty schools in New York, New Jersey, Vermont and Pennsylvania entered the tournament along with 32 doubles teams.
Hamilton sent Alex Arenson ’13, Mira Khanna ’15 and Bella Schoning ’16 to the singles tournament. Arenson and Khanna were originally scheduled to play doubles, but after Arenson hurt her back, Schoning took her spot on the doubles team. Each match was shortened to single eight game sets due to weather and time constraints.
Arenson got off to a great start, winning her first match 8-0 over Katelyn Richenburg of Bridegport University, but ran into back problems in her second match against Mariella Tzakis from New York University. Arenson finished the match, but came up on the losing end of an 8-1 score. “Overall, I was happy with my first round match, but disappointed that I hurt my back,” said Arenson. “It’s been a nagging injury I’ve had for the last few years and I hope to recover in time for our next match on Wednesday.”
Khanna lost her first match 8-2 against Haley Wolf of William Smith, but battled back to defeat Mackenzie Riley of Sage University by a score of 8-5 in a consolation round. “I was pretty satisfied with how I played, and how the three of us played as a whole,” said Khanna. “The competition is tough with the top players from each school, but I think we proved we were up to the challenge.”
Schoning played two close matches that went into extra games. Shena Joseph of Hunter College narrowly defeated her by a score of 9-7 in her first match, and Schoning came up on the winning side of a 9-8 match against Rachel Suresky of the University of Rochester.
Despite the adjustment that came with the last-minute change after Arenson’s injury, Khanna and Schoning were able to salvage two games from Jasmine Muniz-Cadorette and Deborah Wu of the College of New Jersey, losing 8-2 in their only match.
Next up for the women’s tennis team is a dual match at Union College on Thursday, October 4th. They expect good results as the season goes on, as Khanna explained. “We’re only going to get better as we gain more experience in games and with our doubles partners.” Arenson agreed with her, saying, “We’ve improved a lot these last few weeks and have high expectations for the rest of the fall season.”