Last Thursday, the No. 8 Stanford women’s tennis team kicked off its 2015 dual season at home with a 6-1 win against No. 54 Princeton.
The matchup provided Tigers coach Laura Granville her second opportunity to face off against her former team — Granville spent two years on the Farm before turning pro in 2001. The world No. 28 made the most of her time at Stanford, winning two NCAA singles championships, two ITA Player of the Year Awards and leading the Cardinal to a team national championship in 2001, an accomplishment this year’s team will hope to match after falling to North Carolina in the semifinals last year.
Stanford certainly looked capable of achieving that goal against Granville’s current side. The afternoon started with three doubles matches, which would combine to count for one point in the final tally. Stanford’s Krista Hardebeck and Lindsey Kostas prevailed first, winning their match 6-3. Shortly after, the nationally 12th-ranked pair of Ellen Tsay and Caroline Doyle achieved a 7-6 tiebreaker victory. The sweep of the first two games meant that the sixth-ranked pair of Taylor Davidson and Carol Zhao did not even have to complete their match, which had also gone to a tiebreaker that was dead even at 6-6 before Princeton bowed out.
The singles matches were next on the agenda, headlined by the triad of sophomore phenoms Zhao (No. 4 in the nation), Davidson (No. 12) and Doyle (No. 13), who all swept their matches in straight sets. Also contributing straight-set victories were upperclassmen Tsay and Hardebeck, with the only defeat coming in the final match of the day when Princeton’s Emily Hahn narrowly escaped from Kostas in a 10-6 third-set tiebreaker.
Stanford did not have much time to celebrate, however, as it had to go back out the very next day and compete against No. 44 Saint Mary’s, which hopped across the Bay to the Taube Family Tennis Stadium from Moraga. The Gaels proved a fiercer opponent than the Princeton team the day before, but they ultimately proved no match for the Cardinal as they fell 5-2. The day started much the same, as Stanford swept the first two doubles matches to take the first point; this time, it was the team of Doyle and Tsay that was able to get a little more rest as the Saint Mary team forfeited the futile third match.
Stanford downs Saint Mary’s 5-2: http://t.co/yHE8GDtK00 | Two home wins to start season. Gets tougher next week vs. Notre Dame, Ohio State.
— StanfordWTennis (@StanfordWTennis) January 31, 2015
The Cardinal went on to take the first four singles matches, with Zhao, Davidson, Doyle and Tsay each again notching straight-set victories to ensure Stanford of the overall win. The next to finish was a thriller on Court 4, with Stanford’s Hardebeck going back and forth with Saint Mary’s Jamie Pawid in a third-set tiebreak that started to echo the 2010 Isner-Mahut marathon match at Wimbledon that went 183 games. While this battle did not last quite as long, it still provided plenty of drama, eventually ending after 28 games in a 15-13 defeat for Hardebeck. Stanford’s second loss also produced its fair share of bitten nails, as Kostas fell to Saint Mary’s Parminder Kaur 7-6 (7-1), 6-4.
“[Kostas] has the perfect game to win at No. 6,” head coach Lele Forood told GoStanford. “It’s just about getting back to that mentality of being in every single match.”
The team will hope to continue this early success as they chase yet another title and attempt to cement their status as the most decorated women’s tennis program in the country.
Contact Paul Steenkiste at pws ‘at’ stanford.edu.