Tennis finishes up its fall season in Boston

Last weekend, members of Pitt’s women’s tennis team traveled to Boston to participate in… Last weekend, members of Pitt’s women’s tennis team traveled to Boston to participate in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Championship, where each participant came away from the tournament with one victory apiece.

The ITA Championship is the largest women’s tennis tournament in the country, which featured 45 different teams from the East Coast, ranging from New England to Virginia.

While this tournament was going on, eight other tournaments of the same nature went on around the country. The finalists of the doubles and singles flights of each tournament will then go on to the National Indoor Championships in the spring.

“I was really pleased with the performance of each of the girls,” Pitt head coach George Dieffenbach said. “Coming away with wins in the main draw is big and definitely an achievement.”

In singles action for Pitt was Jill Williams, who won her first match over Cynthia Taylor of Rhode Island, 6-4, 4-6 and 6-2.

In her second match, Williams faced off against the No. 3 seed, Emily Marker from Maryland. Marker proved to be too much for Williams, as she won the match, 6-3 and 6-2.

“Jill played a really close match though,” Dieffenbach said. “She was very competitive through the whole match and those scores are very respectable.”

The team of Nikki Borza and Laura Pegula participated in the doubles flight for Pitt and also won their first match. Borza and Pegula defeated Dartmouth’s Jayme Ahmed and Katie Jaxheimer, 8-5. This was Borza’s first win at an ITA Championship in three tries.

The drawing for matches was not favorable for Pitt in its second round match, where the Panthers faced the No. 1 seed from Maryland, Delila Causevic and Marker. Causevic and Marker defeated Borza and Pegula by a score of 8-2.

“They were in the match the whole time and played a lot of close games. That team is one of the best in the nation and we played close with them. They really pushed that team the entire match,” Dieffenbach said.

The ITA Championship was the last tournament of the fall season for the Pitt women. The team will have conditioning practice throughout the winter until they begin practice again for the spring season.