The Brandeis women’s tennis team finished the regular season with a total of three wins and two losses, ending with a record of 12-7. The #14 ranked Judges started with an upset win against the Bowdoin polar bears. They fell behind in the first match of the day with a loss in the second seat of doubles, but came back to take the lead by winning the number one and number three seats. Olivia Leavitt ’19 and Lauren Bertsch ’21 got the Judges on the board with their win 8-6 in the number one seat. Shortly after, Sophia He ’19 and Ana Hatfield ’22 won a tiebreaker 8-7 (7-3).
In the singles matches, Bowdoin tied it up with a win in the fourth seat, but shortly after Diana Dehterevich ’20 brought the Judges back with a win in the first seat, 6-3 and 6-3. With one match down, the Judges final two seniors earned clinched the victory. Leavitt channeled a home state advantage and earned a 7-5, 7-6 win at the number two seat by winning a tiebreaker to tie the Judges and Polar Bears up. Keren Khromchenko ’19, the previous UAA Athlete of the Week, won the final four games of the match to secure the upset victory for the Judges.
The next day, the Judges headed back home for their final regional match against Division II Stonehill. The Judges improved their record 11-4 by sweeping Stonehill in all nine matches. In the doubles matches He and Hatfield put the Judges on the board with their 8-0 win in the third seat. Leavitt and Bertsch followed with a 8-3 win in the first seat. Dehterevich and Isabel Cepeda ’21 completed the doubles sweep with a 8-5 victory in the number two seat.
For the singles matches, Michele Lehat ’19 crushed her opponent 6-0, 6-1 at the number four seat to put the Judges on the board in the singles matches. Bertsch snatched the number one seat with a winning score of 6-3, 6-2. Cepeda and Dehterevich earned their first two-set dual match win of the season the number six seat with the score 6-3, 6-3.
In the singles matches, Lehat won her match at ease at 6-0, 6-1. Bertsch took the number one seat at 6-3, 6-2 and Hartfield won in a close third seat match with scores of 3-6, 6-3, 10-8. He closed out the sweep with a close match as well with final scores of 3-6, 7-5, 10-8.
The Judges headed to Florida for the conference tournament as the fourth seat. To kick off the weekend the Judges topped #33 Case Western Reserve with a 5-0 sweep to move on to the tournament’s championship semi-finals for the first time since 2004. In the doubles matches, Khromchenko and Dehterevich rolled into an easy win 8-1 in the number two seat. Leavitt and Bertsch earned a 8-5 win and He and Hatfield finished off the sweep with a 8-1 win.
In the singles action, Leavitt got a double-bagel in the number two seat to put the Judges one point away from victory. Bertsch secured the win in the number four seat with a 6-0 6-4 victory. This win was even more sweet as it was a rematch from last year’s fifth-place match where Case topped the Judges 7-2. Unfortunately, this was the last win for the Judges for the weekend as they fell to #8 Chicago 5-0 and #11 Carnegie Mellon. The Judges now eagerly wait for their NCAA tournament bid which comes out this weekend.
