With her teammates pressed against the fence, junior Lena Cole stood at match point, up 40-love. She and her Stone Ridge opponent had been playing evenly, trading returns until her opponent’s shot sailed out of bounds. The point clinched a 10-6 victory for Cole, putting GDS up to a 3-2 lead.
On Tuesday, Sept. 30, GDS played Stone Ridge in their fourth match of the season. The team sat at 2-1, and they were looking to beat the top seed in the ISL A Division.
The ISL league is split into two divisions. The AA Division is the upper division and A is the lower division.
In the ISL, regular season sets are played to ten games. This differs from standard United States Tennis Association (USTA) and District of Columbia State Athletic Association (DCSAA) guidelines, in which sets are played to six games.
ISL matches are determined through a best of seven series. Four singles sets and three doubles sets are played, and the team that wins four total sets wins.
Sophomores Helena Seiken and Ema Kuburovic played singles one and two, respectively. Both players got off to a strong start; Seiken held her opponent to zero games in the beginning of her set as she went on a blistering 5-0 run, and Kuburovic lost her first game before going on a 4-0 run of her own.
“I felt pretty good about it,” Seiken said of her opening games. “Usually I start the game off strong.”
Midway through her match, Seiken’s opponent won two games in a row, putting the score at 7-2.
“She was doing a good job moving me and picking up on my patterns,” Seiken said. “I tried to hit the ball higher and out of her comfort zone.”
Kuburovic started her set with a series of strong rallies and took a 7-2 lead.
Both players were able to win their match by a comfortable margin: Kuburovic won 10-4 and Seiken 10-2.
Juniors Willa Wible, Zeze Grace and Mae Lazerow all lost their matches. Wible played singles three, and Grace and Lazerow played doubles two together. Their losses brought the overall score to 2-2.
Cole, who played singles four, played a very competitive opponent; both players were extremely consistent in both their serves and returns. Up 7-4, Cole decided to switch strategies by playing more offensively.
“I was more aggressive, which didn’t work,” Cole said. “I was super tired and kept messing up.”
Because of this strategic switch, Cole’s opponent won the next two games. After the losses, Cole returned to her original defensive game plan and won the next four matches, leading her to a 10-6 victory.
Sophomore Emma Choi and senior Ambar Grewal lost their doubles match in a close contest to tie the overall score again at 3-3.
The tiebreaking match was a doubles contest played by juniors Avery Snyder and Nicole Stutson. Stone Ridge came out hot, jumping to a 4-1 lead, though Stutson and Snyder clawed their way back with hard-fought rallies.
They cut Stone Ridge’s lead to a score of 4-3 before the Gators went on a run to go up 9-4. Stutson and Snyder won two more games before eventually losing the match 10–6.
With their final doubles win, Stone Ridge beat GDS 4–3 to win the competition.
Senior and co-captain Andie Kanarek pointed to the team’s culture as their biggest strength. “We have the most supportive team,” she said. “I think the most difficult thing is that we don’t have tennis courts at GDS and so we’re managing going back and forth.”
Head coach Grant Tabler thought the team’s competitiveness in the match was a positive sign for the team. “We continue to improve on our record from last year,” Tabler said. “We have a lot of sophomores coming up and leading the team—it’s definitely given us a lot of confidence.”
The team will next play Madeira on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at George Washington University.
CORRECTION (Oct. 7 at 5:10 p.m.): A previous version of this article misstated Grant Tabler’s name.
CORRECTION (Oct. 6 at 12:12 p.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the date of the next match.