Boston College Athletics
Women's Tennis Opens Spring vs. Dartmouth
January 20, 2012 | Women's Tennis
Jan. 20, 2012
Chestnut Hill, Mass. - The Boston College women's tennis team opens the spring season with a home match against Dartmouth on Saturday, Jan. 21 at the Weymouth Club at 1 p.m. The Eagles then travel to Brown on Sunday to take on the Brown Bears in Providence, R.I.at 10 a.m.
BC looks to build on the success it had in the fall to bolster the team as it enters the spring schedule. The Eagles finished the fall season with an 87-37 record as a team and enter the spring ranked 45th in the nation. Last year, they earned the highest ranking in program history, reaching as high as 33.
"We are coming off the best fall season we have ever had in terms of getting recognized," head coach Nigel Bentley said. "We had players in every category in terms of the national and regional singles and doubles rankings, and the team earned a national ranking. It was nice to be recognized in all five of those categories. The thing that really jumps out from the fall is that we are, for the first time in a long time, really deep. We have a lot of really good players, and that to me, is the key to being a national contending team; you have to have depth and that is what we have."
Juniors Olga Khmylev and Alex Kelleher begin the spring ranked as the No. 1 doubles pair in the region and No. 11 in the nation, BC's highest national and regional rankings in program history. Freshman Jessica Wacnik and senior Erina Kikuchi rank second in the Northeast and 32nd in the nation to start the spring. Wacnik begins in the spring season as the No. 108 national ranking and the No. 4 ranking in the Northeast region. Kelleher begins the spring ranked as the No. 11 singles player in the Northeast. Kikuchi begins the spring ranked ninth in the Northeast region.
Fall highlights included senior Katarina Gajic becoming the first Eagle in many years to earn an automatic bid to the Riviera/ITA All-American Championship, earning the 14th seed, along with and Khmylev earning an automatic bid to the USTA/ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships by winning the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championship. The pair won the first two matches at the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, before losing in the quarterfinals to the fourth seed in the tournament. They were the first BC pair to advance that far on the national stage. Wacnik Kikuchi were seeded fifth at the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional Championship and lost in the finals to BC teammates after beating out two ninth seeds. Wacnik and Kikuchi also advanced to the Northeast Regional Championship quarterfinals in singles action.
Last year, the Eagles defeated the Big Green, 5-2, in Hanover, N.H. Both Kikuchi and Gajic earned doubles points with their partners to win two of the three matches. BC then took four of the singles matches over the Big Green, taking three in straight sets. Khmylev defeated Georgiana Smyser, 6-1, 6-1, and Kikuchi took down Sarah Leonard, 6-3, 2-6, 11-9, on the second court.
BC fell to Brown, 4-3, last season in Weymouth. The Eagles successfully captured the doubles point with a pair of 8-4 wins from Kelleher and Khmylev on court one and freshmen Veronica Corning and Haley Dixon on the second court. Kelleher also earned the victory in the No. 1 singles spot over Misia Krasowski , 6-2, 6-0, but the Bears recorded three straight wins on courts two, three and six shifted the momentum in their favor. Gajic then scored an equalizer on No. 4 singles, defeating Julie Flanzer, 6-4, 6-2. With the match tied at three, Khmylev was battling Jessica Harrow at No. 5 singles. She lost a tiebreaker in the first set, before winning in the second to force a third and final set. The two sides again went to a tiebreaker where Brown narrowly escaped with the win, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-6 (4).
