This past weekend, Villanova’s women’s tennis team hosted the Villanova Invite, where it competed against Delaware, NJIT and Temple. Although there was no team scoring for the event, head coach Steve Reiniger considered the weekend a success.
“Our whole team did really well at handling themselves and being very honest, and I appreciated that from the players,” Reininger said.
On Friday, Sept. 15, the Wildcats faced off against NJIT’s Highlanders to start the invite. In the singles competition, the team struggled and posted a 4-5 record. The winners of the day included graduate student Ami Grace Dougah, freshman Miram Gondorova, senior Bella Steffen and graduate student Amanda Rivera.
Although Gondorova’s match was over within two sets, she battled for a long time with a 7-5 score in the first set and a 6-4 score in the second. Rivera also played a close eight-game pro set, narrowly winning, 8-6. Steffens had a much easier time with her match, going 6-0 in the first set and 6-4 in the second.
Doubles competition against the Highlanders had a similar outcome to the singles, with the Wildcats falling, 2-3. Dougah and Gondorova paired together and stayed undefeated for the day, beating NJIT’s Wipfli and Cicero. Steffens also kept her clean record with her doubles win with junior Chloe Floyd.
“Out of the four teams we had the most players so I was just getting everybody to play and mixing up the doubles combinations,” Reininger said of the players’ performances. “They did really well, particularly Friday, and NJIT is a strong team so I thought we had a really good showing. It was not a head-to-head match, I’m just getting a bunch of players in.”
On Saturday, the Wildcats took on Temple, which swept through them in both singles and doubles play. For doubles, each team played one six-game pro set with the Owls, going 3-0. Sophomores Emi Callahan and Maggie Gehrig came close to the Owls’ Samantha Nanere and Jessie Zheng, but lost the set, 7-5.
“I’m experimenting with doubles combinations so most of the time they were playing doubles with the person for the first time,” Reiniger said. “I’m just seeing what works and what doesn’t. The wins and losses don’t matter, I’m just seeing if they have chemistry and complementary skill sets. It wasn’t horrible, I know the scores don’t reflect that. I’m not looking that much at the scores. I was fine with the way they played doubles.”
In singles play, the Wildcats finished the day with a record of 2-6. Dougah continued her undefeated streak through the tournament by easily defeating Zheng in two sets with a score of 6-1, 6-4. The only other Wildcat that was able to come up with a win was freshman Lauren Monti, who fought hard in the two sets she won as both were determined by a tiebreaker.
On Sunday, Sept. 17, the Wildcats continued to struggle in doubles against Delaware, going 1-3 for the day. Dougah and Rivera were the only successful pair, defeating Blue Hens Alex Staiculescu and Eliza Askarova, 6-3, in a one set match.
A large factor in their struggles came from the fact that some players had to miss matches. Juniors Emma Brogan and Valieriia Kornieva were out of Sunday competition due to illness, and sophomores Savie Seebald and Emi Callahan both were confined to doubles due to injury.
“Seebald has a little knee issue so we are slowly bringing her back,” Reiniger said. “Emi Callahan is recuperating as well so we kept her at doubles. She was our best doubles player on the team last year. I didn’t want to push her too much over the weekend.”
For singles, the Wildcats had a similar showing, going 2-6. Gehrig won her match in three sets, sweep- ing Staiculescu, 6-2, in the first, but Staiculescu came back swinging and only conceded one game to Gehrig. The last set was determined by a tenpoint tiebreaker which Gehrig went on to win, 10-7.
The final winner for the Wildcats was Dougah, whose 7-5, 6-3 defeat over Slade Coetzee gave her an undefeated record at the Villanova Invite going 5-0 with both singles and doubles matches.
“Ami Grace Dougah really impressed me the whole weekend,” Reiniger said. “She didn’t lose a single or a doubles match. I mean I thought she was going to be good but I didn’t realize she was going to be that good. She just really represented the school well on the court. Sometimes tennis matches can get heated. In the matches we do, there are no officials, so everybody is calling their own lines.”
