There is an error in this story
A story in Tuesday’s paper should have said Jamie Peisel won her first set of tennis and lost the second.
The Northwestern women’s tennis team bumped up its record by two wins this weekend at the Combe Tennis Center, edging No. 9 Harvard on Friday, 4-3, and not flinching in their 6-1 win against No. 50 Wisconsin on Saturday.
The No. 8 Wildcats began their dual against the Crimson by taking two of the three doubles matches to win the doubles point.
The wins came at No. 2, with freshman Georgia Rose and senior Feriel Esseghir dominating their match 8-0, and at No. 3, where senior Jamie Peisel and freshman Nazlie Ghazal clinched the doubles point with an 8-4 win.
The No. 1 doubles team of senior Cristelle Grier and junior Alexis Prousis came close to making it a sweep, but dropped the match in a tiebreaker.
Wins in singles came at the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 spots for NU, taking the four points needed for the Cats’ seventh win of the season. Rose’s victory at No. 2 singles made it eleven straight singles wins for the freshman.
After beating the No. 9 Crimson 4-3 on Friday, the Cats breezed through Saturday’s conference matchup against the Badgers.
The Cats clinched it after snagging all three doubles matches within an hour. Esseghir and Rose took the first doubles match at No. 2, followed by Grier and Prousis at No. 1 and Ghazal and Peisel at No. 3.
“I thought the doubles point was some good tennis,” coach Claire Pollard said. “I was pleased to win all three of them. So many of our doubles points are lopsided, it hasn’t been good for us. But today we actually hit a lot of balls, and we did a good job.”
In singles Esseghir at No. 5 looked almost bored as she strolled by Erin Jobe in a 6-0, 6-0 win, finishing first for the Cats.
Rose won next at No. 3 singles 6-2, 6-1, and Prousis clinched the win with a 6-2, 6-3 win at No. 2.
It wasn’t until after NU already had sealed the win that the real competition began.
At No. 1 singles Grier battled hard to keep start the conference season with a flawless singles record. Grier fought from behind in two sets against Wisconsin’s Caitlin Burke, winning her match 6-4, 7-5.
“[Burke] has always given me a great match,” Grier said. “She’s really one of the top players. I think she’s improved enormously, and the fact that I managed to beat her today shows that I’ve improved with her.”
Peisel nearly took her match at No. 4 singles after dropping the first set and coming back to win the second. But the senior fell in a lengthy tiebreaker and ended her match 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-7).
The win against Wisconsin is the Cats’ sixth in a row. They sit at 7-1 for the season and will travel to North Carolina this weekend for an 11 a.m. match on Saturday.
Reach Diane at [email protected].
