Emory men, Williams women win tennis titles
Emory University had a chance to win both 2017 NCAA Division III tennis team championships Wednesday in Chattanooga, but the Atlanta school had to settle for one.
In matches moved for weather reasons to McCallie School’s Strang-Voges Tennis Center, the Emory men beat Claremont-Mudd-Scripps from Southern California 5-2, but the Emory women lost 5-4 to Williams College from Massachusetts.
Emory had edged Williams by the same score in the 2016 women’s final in Kalamazoo, Mich. Those two programs have won 16 of the last 17 national titles, and now the Ephs have won eight of the last 10 under coach Alison Swain.
On Wednesday they won the first two doubles matches but trailed 4-3 with two singles matches in progress. Williams’ Leah Bush, No. 32 in the ITA rankings, then pulled out a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 win over No. 12 Michelle Satterfield at No. 2, leaving everything riding on the battle of titans at No. 1 singles.
And No. 2-ranked Juli Raventos of Williams bounced back from a 6-1 first-set loss to beat No. 1-ranked Bridget Harding 6-3, 6-2.
Raventos also defeated Harding in last year’s team final, despite the Ephs’ loss, and wound up the runner-up in the individual singles tournament final. But the Emory junior climbed to the top spot in the rankings this year while Raventos battled an illness and a lengthy layoff.
“I feel good now,” Raventos said Wednesday. “I just knew I had to come out with everything I had. My teammates needed me.”
She and Linda Shin have won the last two NCAA doubles championships and are ranked fifth this year, but they let a 7-5 lead get away in their matchup with top-ranked Harding and Katarina Su, who won 9-7 in the pro-set scoring.
Raventos certainly could have folded after losing the first set to Harding.
“She played a really good first set,” Raventos said. “But I went to the bathroom between sets and kind of (pulled myself together). I came out firing. She played a good match.”
“We haven’t taken the easy road, that’s for sure,” Swain said of the quarterfinals, semifinals and final. “But sometimes that’s better. It makes you more prepared.
“It came down to everybody. That’s kind of the route we took all three days of this tournament. And different people every day came through for us. Everybody played a big part in this championship, and I’m so proud of them.”
Chloe Henderson with Hannah Atkinson and Julia Cancio with Emily Zheng won in doubles for fourth-ranked Williams (204), and the Ephs’ Mia Gancayco won at No. 5 singles. Singles victors for third-ranked Emory (17-7) were Daniela Lopez, Su and Paula Castro.
The Emory men got off to a 3-0 start in their late=starting final with a doubles sweep by Scott Rubinstein with James Spaulding, Adrian Bouchet with Max Renke and Jonathan Jemison with David Ornsky, and the Eagles (22-4) squeezed a Jemison No. 2 singles win between victories by CMS’s Alex Brenner at No. 6 and Nikolai Parodi at No. 1 before Bouchet ended the team competition with a 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 win at No. 3.
That gave the Eagles their fourth national championship since John Browning became the coach in 2000, and their first in five years.
About the splendid doubles start, Browning said, “We caught a few lucky breaks. We were very fortunate to start 3-0, for sure.” But he reminded his team before singles that CMS had overcome the same deficit the night before against Middlebury with “a miraculous comeback.”
“They’re a very well-coached team,” he said of the 32-4 runners-up.
The individual national tournament with singles and doubles participants is scheduled to begin this morning at the Champions Club, and Sewanee’s Clementina Davila is set to play at 9:30 a.m. with Sewanee men’s standout Avery Schober slated at 11.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@ timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.