ORLANDO, Fla. – In a highly-anticipated match between two national powers that went deep into the night, the Wesleyan women's tennis team showed incredible fight to pull out a 5-2 win over Carnegie Mellon on Wednesday evening from the USTA National Tennis Center. The Cardinals (3-0) relied on a pair of singles wins that needed three sets before Kristina Yu '22 closed out the match with a 6-0 second set victory for the clinching point over the Tartans (7-4), a long-time successful program that has advanced to at least the Third Round of the NCAA Tournament every year since 2017.
 
Wesleyan built an early lead thanks to a pair of 8-4 doubles victories. Nika Vesely '25 and Sophie Henderson '22 combined to take down Janabelle Wu and Crystal Zhou at #2 while Venia Yeung '22 and Katie Fleischman '23 defeated Zoe Angell and Megan Qiang at #3. The #1 doubles match came down to a tiebreak as Sasha Gaeth '23 and Yu eventually fell to Lindy Cornwall and Bin Zheng 7-3 in the tiebreak.
 
Heading into singles play with a 2-1 lead, the Cardinals weren't in a great spot early as the Tartans won the first set in four of five singles matches. Yet, in the face of the Carnegie Mellon pressure, the Cardinals bounced right back and saw second set wins in the #1, #2 and #3 singles matches to set up third set tiebreaks in all three matches.
 
Caitlyn Ferrante '23 saw her battle with Sarah Yang end in triumph as Ferrante pulled out a 10-6 win in the third set tiebreak to earn a crucial point after a 1-6, 6-3, 10-6 win. Vesely saw very similar success, after dropping the first set 6-1, the first-year bounced back with a 6-2 second set win, sending the match to a tiebreak which Vesely won 10-4 over Crystal Zhou at #2.
 
Lindy Cornwall for Carnegie Mellon shook off the late rally attempt from Fleischman at #3 and took the match with a 6-3, 2-6, 10-3 win to make it 4-2 Cardinals in the team score.
 
Needing just one more point, it was Yu who came through with a 6-4, 6-0 win at #5 over Megan Qiang as the only Cardinal to win the first set in singles play rolled in a clean sweep in the second set to earn Wesleyan the deciding fifth point in a match that didn't finish until after Midnight.
 
The two unfinished singles matches saw Yeung locked in a second set deadlock at 4-4 after dropping the first set 6-4 against Bin Zheng at #4. Serim Jin '23 was taking on Zoe Angell at #6 and the pair didn't get far in their match as it ended with Jin leading 3-2 in the first set.
 
Wesleyan continues on their busy Spring Break trip with a late Thursday morning match with Haverford that is set for 11:30 AM from Sanlando Park.