There is no season like postseason.
This past weekend, the No. 12 Maroons traveled down to Altamonte Springs, FL to compete in the UAA Championships, where they have historically performed well. Chicago ended the weekend picking up a fourth-place finish with a win over No. 22 Brandeis and one loss each to No. 9 Wash U and No. 2 Emory. The South Siders brought their record to 10–10 on the season.
The Maroons opened the tournament against Brandeis. Third-year Megan Tang and first-year Tiffany Chen, ranked No. 1 doubles team in the region, won the No. 1 doubles match against Brandeis’s first-year Carley Cooke and fourth-year Roberta Bergstein, 9–8 (7–2). No. 2 doubles duo second-year Helen Sdvizhkov and second-year Sruthi Ramaswami earned another win over the Judges 8–4.
To round out the Chicago doubles sweep, No. 3 doubles partners second-year Stephanie Lee and third-year Kelsey McGillis picked up a victory over Brandeis third-year Dylan Schlesinger and second-year Simone Vandroff 9–7.
“Doubles is always key because you never know how singles will shake out. We saw that this weekend time and again where that extra point in doubles ended up making the difference in the final outcome. Also, going up 3–0 allows us to be a little looser in singles and takes a ton of pressure off,” head coach Jay Tee said.
This sweep carried the Maroons for the rest of the day as they earned a 6–3.
The match against Emory did not go as well for the Maroons. The Eagles won every match of the day, handily, with not one Chicago singles player able to win more than two sets in any match. The Eagles went on to pick up the UAA title, beating Carnegie Mellon 8–1.
The loss to Emory sent Chicago into the bracket to compete for third place. The Maroons matched up against regional rival Wash U, who had lost to Carnegie Mellon the previous day, 6–3.
This was not a new matchup for either team, as the two teams last met just two weeks ago.
“We were expecting another close match, but were very confident that we would play better as a team, especially in doubles. We didn’t have Helen [Sdvizhkov] for our first meeting, so that also gave us a stronger presence in singles this time around,” Tee said.
The day began with Wash U gaining a slight advantage in doubles play, winning against Tang and Chen in a close No. 1 match 9–8 (8–6). The Bears also picked up the win in No. 3 doubles over Lee and McGillis, 8–2. The lone doubles win for the Maroons came from No. 2 duo Sdvizhkov and Ramaswami, as they defeated Aly Coran and Jamie Silverberg 9–7. Tang and McGillis would pick up the only two singles wins for the Maroons. McGillis fell behind early in the match, but she proved to be resilient, winning a hard-fought game, 4–6, 7–6 (7–5), 10–7.
The Maroons will find out on Monday if they have received an NCAA tournament bid; individual qualifiers will also be announced.
