Jordan Jancosek

This past weekend, the women’s tennis team took on Tiffin University and was handed a tough loss as it walked away from the match 4-5.

The Yeowomen continue to be strong in their doubles play, as the number one duo, senior Jackie Golden and junior Kelly Sipp, defeated their opponents 8-6. The number two doubles team, juniors Sarah Teitelbaum and Jane Hayden, also beat their opponents 8-6. The number three doubles team, junior Olivia Hayden and first-year Marta Robertson, lost doubles match 6-8.

The singles teams struggled a bit more — Oberlin only won two out of the six matches. “Although it’s true that we haven’t hit our stride in singles, we’re not by any means hitting the panic button,” said Coach Constantine Ananiadis. “We put a lot of emphasis early on in doubles strategy and doubles formations, and I guess we took for granted that we know how to play singles.”

Number one singles player — as well as a number one doubles player — Golden was defeated 2-6 and 1-6 in her matches, respectively. Number two singles and doubles player Jane Hayden was similarly defeated, 2-6 and 3-6. Number three player Sipp lost 5-7 and 2-6, while number five singles player Robertson was defeated 3-6 and 0-6.

Ananiadis believes that focusing on the psychological aspect of tennis may improve singles play. She said, “We’ve started addressing our mental approach to singles matches more. We’re obviously good enough to play with some of these players, but we seem to lose our way and get flustered easily. As a result, we end up beating ourselves more so than our opponents beating us.”

Oberlin was also missing its team captain, senior Kimiko Glynn, due to an academic conflict. “We hope to have her in the line-up for our next match,” said Ananiadis. “It always affects a team when you’re missing such a dominant number-one player; it’s going to affect your results, I don’t care how deep your team is. Not having her last weekend definitely made a difference, especially versus Tiffin on Sunday.”

Ananiadis also praised all six of her doubles teams at last weekends match. “All six doubles were great at last weekend’s match, and there wasn’t one person who stood out on both days in singles unfortunately. We’ve been very inconsistent with our singles performances.”

In their upcoming matches, Ananiadis hopes the team will play “more relaxed, confident tennis.” She believes the results will begin to take care of themselves if the team accomplishes that feat.

The women’s tennis team played a match last night against Case Western. Next up is the team week to prepare for its home match against Ohio Wesleyan on March 15 at 2:30 p.m.