For the second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for the IU women's tennis team, Vanderbilt defeated No. 41 IU 4-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
With the loss in Clemson, S.C., the Hoosiers end the year with an 18-10 record, which marks the most wins for the IU women's tennis program since the 2007-08 season.
While the Hoosiers failed to earn a point, the match was much closer than the score would indicate. IU was competitive in all three doubles matches and three of the singles matches went to three sets.
The No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 singles matches were unfinished. IU was leading or tied in all three matches.
"Singles was a toss-up; I think if it wasn't a tournament situation, I think we would have split the singles 3-3," IU Coach Lin Loring said. "We won three of the first sets. Jithmie lost the first set of a tiebreaker so we were literally a handful of points away from winning four of the first sets."
Loring said that the match came down to the doubles matches and he said that he wonders if the final result would have been different if sophomore Carolyn Chupa, who had the best singles win-loss record for the Hoosiers, didn't suffer an ankle injury the night before the match.
"It was really just an unfortunate situation," Loring said. "We literally the night before at practice yelled out 'One more point' and she actually turned it on that point."
"I don't know if it would have made a difference in the match because style-wise it wasn't a great matchup for her," he said. She was playing with a heavily taped up ankle. It didn't really affect her in doubles but I think it might have affected her in singles because that was the only singles match that wasn't really close."
In both the No. 2 and No. 3 matches, the Hoosiers trailed 5-4. Vanderbilt went on to win both matches 8-4 to win the doubles point.
"There was nothing going on in the doubles that we couldn't handle," Loring said. "It wasn't like they were really active at the net or had huge serves, it just came down to a few big points on deuce-ad games. We just didn't win our share of them, that was really about it for the doubles."
In singles, No. 95 Georgina Sellyn bested Chupa 6-1, 6-1 in the No. 3 match to give the Commodores a 2-0 lead.
In the No. 5 position, Ashleigh Antal took the first set against junior Sophie Garre 6-2. Garre won the second set but Antal won the match with another 6-2 victory in the third set.
Frances Altick sealed the victory for Vanderbilt in the No. 6 singles match. She defeated senior Jithmie Jayawickrema 7-6 (7-2) in a first set tiebreaker and followed it up by winning the second set 6-3.
After defeating Indiana on Friday, Vanderbilt (16-11) faced the 13-seeded Clemson in the second round. Clemson bested the Commodores 4-2 to advance to the Round of 16 in Champaign, Ill.
The top three finishers in the regular season Big Ten standings--Michigan, Nebraska, and Northwestern--also advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.
"I think overall the team is happy with the improvement we had this year since basically except for Gabby and Jithmie, it was all of the same girls (as last year)," Loring said. We'll always look back and feel like we left a few wins on the table. We lost more than our share of 4-3 matches this year."
"We're always going to look back and that's going to be a little disappointing but overall, the improvement that we made and the two top ten wins and the tournament will always make it a successful year for us"
