Mary Washington women’s tennis team falls short against Carnegie Mellon at home

by YZABEL ILAO

Staff Writer

On Saturday afternoon, UMW women’s tennis lost to Carnegie Mellon University by a final score of 7–0 at the Hegmann Family Tennis Courts in Fredericksburg.

Despite the team’s loss, freshman Natalie Kim won her first set due to her focus on the court. 

“I went to my match and I was at 4-1. When I am up 4-1, I usually let my guard down, and my focus goes low. So I always try my best not to do that,” said Kim. “But it always ends up happening where I lose my focus and then they end up catching up. But this first set, I kept my focus and I won the set.”

In her second set, Kim’s injuries made it challenging to win the match. Yet the pain did not stop her from having a rewarding experience playing a challenging team like Carnegie Mellon. 

“It was a tough match, especially because my arm was hurting,” she said. “I had arm issues, elbow issues, but the game was really fun. We were rallying 20 balls, and it was just a really good match.”

For players like Kim, losing a tiebreak can make it difficult to keep up a positive mindset during the match.

“I lost the tiebreak. Obviously, I was really upset, but you know, this match will teach me for my future matches,” she said. “I always tell other people to have a strong mindset, especially when they’re down or they’re losing. When I was in that atmosphere, it was really hard to do that. So that’s definitely something I could work on.”

Freshman Sophia Broomall said it was tough to play games back-to-back. Before their match against Carnegie Mellon University, the Eagles played Washington and Lee University on Friday and Saturday.

“The one on Friday was a really long one, it was really physically demanding,” said Broomall. “Then we slept on it and came back the next day. I was really sore and tired for that one. Just during warm-up, we were running, and I was like, ‘Wow. Like, this is rough.’ I was not feeling good because I had a really long match the day before.”

Broomall started with a doubles match that ended with a 6–3 loss. 

“We were playing a lot better towards the end,” she said. “My singles were not very good. I was very tired, and my mental was not as strong as I could have been, and so I had a lot of trouble, like trying to pick myself back up and there were a lot of distractions that were getting to me.”

Although the team was having difficulty playing against Carnegie Mellon, Broomall feels that the team still played satisfactorily. Broomall also credits her fellow teammates for making the court a positive and fun atmosphere when she was feeling off during her matches.

“I was just off rhythm and not playing great, but my teammate, Emily Tharpe, cheered so much for me, and I really liked it, and that was really fun,” said Broomal. “So overall, I think we played better in the match the day before, but Carnegie Mellon is the hardest team we’ll ever play in our conference. I feel like we played okay. I think we all could have played better, but we played okay.”

Despite not participating in a match against Carnegie Mellon players, freshman Emily Tharpe kept a spirited environment on the court for her fellow Eagles. Even though she was not on the lineup, she still cheered everybody else on. 

“As a team, we really try to keep the environment very spirited. Like going uphill, just trying to keep your momentum going, going into games like this,” said Tharpe. “Carnegie Mellon is a really tough team, and they’re one of the highest ranks in the nation. So for us, you have to go in with a good mentality, like a tough mentality, that you’re here even though you might not get the exact results that you wanted.”

She continued, “It’s always worth the fight to keep going. I think in my position, just going from court to court and watching each of the games is an important thing to do. I really enjoy it and I feel like everyone’s really supportive of one another. So I think overall, the game was good. Results were pretty good, everybody fought hard.”

Currently, the UMW team is ranked #30 in the nation, with three wins and five losses. Their next game will be on the road against Christopher Newport University on March 29.