Vanderbilt Women’s Tennis (4-1) breezed through a doubleheader on Jan. 31 as it took on Middle Tennessee State (2-3) and Bellarmine (0-6). The Commodores are now 3-0 since their sole loss to UC Santa Barbara a week ago.
Middle Tennessee State
For opening doubles matches, the Commodores split into pairs of Célia-Belle Mohr/Sophia Webster, Bridget Stammel/Sonya Macavei and Valeria Ray/Trinetra Vijayakumar. Stammel/Macavei and Ray/Vijayakumar made quick work of their opponents, winning their matches 6-1 and clinching the doubles point for the Commodores. No. 11 Mohr/Webster took down MTSU’s Lena Peyer/Eloise Swarbrick a bit later in a 6-3 finish.
Quick finishes would be the theme of the day as No. 26 Stammel blanked Ilaria Sposeti 6-0 in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion. Stammel kept her foot on the gas with another quick 6-1 victory in the second set, capturing the first individual point for the Commodores.
Mohr and Vijayakumar wouldn’t be far behind as they captured their matches 6-1, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-1, respectively. With four team points, Vanderbilt officially clinched the match with the end of Vijayakumar’s second set; however, the teams continued to play all the way through seven.
No. 78 Ray (6-1, 6-2) and Webster (6-4, 6-1) would capture two more points for the Commodores while MTSU’s Rutuja Chaphalkar would beat Amy Stevens to give the Blue Raiders their sole point of the day. The final score: Vanderbilt 6, MTSU 1.
Bellarmine
Vanderbilt slightly altered its doubles pairings for the match against Bellarmine, subbing in Jayden Jagolinzer in place of Stammel. The substitution quickly paid dividends as Jagolinzer/Macavei finished with a quick 6-2 victory, followed by a Ray/Vijayakumar 6-2 win that gave the Black and Gold the doubles point.
Jagolinzer also came in for the singles matches, taking the place of Mohr. It wouldn’t take long for the Commodores to clinch their second team point as Ray blanked Marika Caruk 6-0, 6-0. Webster captured the third team point with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Nikola Kollaritsch, followed by a match-clinching win by Stammel (6-1, 6-3) over Ekaterina Tikhonko. As the Bellarmine match was the second of a doubleheader, the teams elected to halt the match at Vanderbilt’s 4-0 victory rather than completing the remaining singles matches.
With a winning streak in tow, Vanderbilt will be back in action for another doubleheader on Feb. 14 against Murray State and Tennessee State. The Commodores will then only have a trip to Illinois to face Northwestern before the start of SEC play.
