SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – In the final competition of the fall season, the Wesleyan women's tennis team saw
Kristina Yu '22 and
Sasha Gaeth '23 finish as the runner-up at the New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament (NEWITT), a three-day tournament hosted between Amherst and Smith over the weekend.
The unique tournament features two to three player teams from each school. The teams will then battle one another in a best 2-of-3 competition with one doubles match followed by two singles matches, if necessary, to determine which side will advance.
Wesleyan fielded two teams for this competition: Yu and Gaeth along with a team of
Sarah Youngberg '26,
Nika Vesely '25 and
Katie Fleischman '23.
The tournament run for Yu and Gaeth began with a 3-0 victory over MIT in the round of 16 as Yu and Gaeth teamed up for an 8-6 win over Alaina Kolli and Yuka Perera in the doubles portion before scoring a pair of thrilling three-set singles win. Yu defeated Kolli 6-4, 1-6, 12-10 while Gaeth took down Sara Fernandez 3-6, 6-2, 11-9.
In the quarterfinals, Yu and Gaeth took down Isabella Hartman and Josephine Kimball of Trinity in convincing fashion. The Cardinal duo won the doubles point 8-1 before earning straight set wins in singles play.
Facing off against MIT's top team in the semifinals, the Cardinals came out on top with Yu defeating Sarah Pertsemlidis with a 4-6, 6-1, 10-6 come-from-behind win. Gaeth lost her singels match to Jessica Lu, setting up a crucial doubles point where the Cardinals prevailed via an 8-4 win.
Appearing in the finals against Olivia Soffer and Matia Cristiani of Babson, the Beavers proved just too much in the singles portion to overcome a loss to Yu and Gaeth in doubles play. Wesleyan's squad took down Soffer and Cristiani 8-5 in doubles but fell in straight sets in both singles matches to take a runner-up finish in the event.
The Youngberg/Vesely/Fleischman team defeated Colby's Sam Riordan and Isabella Suk in the round of 16 before falling to Middlebury's Sahana Raman and Lulu Wu in the quarterfinals.
This tournament concludes the fall season for the women's tennis team as the Cardinals will resume play with the dual match spring season in March.
