For the third year in a row, Stanford women’s tennis swept the USTA/ITA Regional Championships, as senior Kristie Ahn cruised to a singles title while freshman Taylor Davidson and junior Ellen Tsay claimed the doubles title in the Northwest Region.
Ahn, a two-time All-American who won the decisive match in last year’s NCAA Championships against Texas A&M, followed up a strong start to the season with an absolutely dominant performance on her home court at the Stanford-hosted regional.
In the nine matches that she played throughout the singles tournament, the third-seeded senior never dropped a single set and steamrolled first-seeded Zsofi Susanyi of Cal in the semifinals, 6-0, 6-1, before easily taking out the sixth-seeded Jenny Jullien of St. Mary’s in the finals, 6-4, 6-2.
The rest of Stanford’s women’s team also had significant success throughout the singles tournament as six of the top 32 and four of the top eight represented the Farm. Tsay and Davidson consecutively lost to Susanyi in the round of 16 and the quarterfinals, before Ahn took care of business against her in the semifinals. On the other side of the bracket, freshman Caroline Doyle and freshman Carol Zhao were also consecutively defeated in the quarterfinals and semifinals by Jullien, who would go on to be defeated by Ahn.
Ahn almost claimed the doubles championship as well, as she and Zhao made it all the way to the finals before falling to Davidson and Tsay, 8-6, in a closely contested, all-Stanford final.
With the win, Tsay notched her third consecutive doubles title at the USTA/ITA Regionals after winning the event in each of the last two years with the now-graduated Stacey Tan ‘13 as her partner. Ahn’s singles victory also marked the fourth straight season in which a member of the Cardinal claimed the singles title.
In the men’s tournaments at St. Mary’s, however, the Cardinal was less successful. The last man standing for Stanford was sophomore Anthony Tsodikov, who was eventually eliminated, 6-3, 6-4, by Cal’s Andre Goransson in the quarterfinals.
Junior John Morrissey, who entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed, was upset by Pacific’s Sam Verbeek in the round of 16 as every Stanford player still standing outside of Tsodikov—Morrissey, sophomores Trey Strobel, Nolan Paige and Maciek Romanowicz—was taken down before reaching the quarterfinals.
The Card fared only slightly better in the men’s doubles tournament, with Morrissey and freshman partner Yale Goldberg making it to the semifinals before being soundly defeated, 8-2, by the Cal duo of Chase Melton and Gregory Bayane.
Moving forward, the women will look to continue their success at the ITA National Indoors Tournament at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., in early November. The men’s team will also attend the ITA National Indoors Tournament after an invitational at the University of the Pacific a week earlier.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.