SRU tennis started 2024 with a 5-4 win at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) home courts last Friday.
Amaia Balaguer Brau and Nicole Kempton led the way, winning their doubles matchup as well as each of their individual singles duels.
The success is unsurprising for the sophomore-freshman duo. Brau, the sophomore, is coming off of a fall season where she went 4-3 in singles play and 3-1 in doubles alongside Dari Sakhanova.
Brau’s first doubles match with Kempton resulted in an 8-4 win, bringing her overall 2023-24 season doubles record to 4-1 and Kempton’s to 5-4.
The freshman’s three-game victory in singles play brought her singles record up to 3-1 going back to last year.
SRU’s other doubles teams consisted of Tina Slovak, Sakhanova, Nuria Martin Lopez and Georgia Lancaster with the former two falling to CMU’s Anna Chow and Zoe Angell. The latter two lost to Anika Joshi and Elaine Qian.
Accompanying Brau and Kempton with singles wins were Slovak and Lancaster. The latter had likely the most impressive individual showing for SRU, rivaled most closely by Kempton’s two-game set win, as the junior won her set by winning her first two games 6-2 and 6-3.
The most dominant overall individual showing, though, came against The Rock as Tartan’s Sarah Yang took down Sakhanova 6-0 and 6-3 to end the set.
This year’s spring opener was a rebound for the White and Green. Last year saw Carnegie Mellon win handily, 6-1 overall. The Rock has now beaten CMU in two of the last three meetings going back to 2022 when they bested CMU 4-3.
Rock tennis will be back at it this Friday at 6:30 p.m. when Frostburg State University comes to Wexford, Pa.
