Women’s Tennis

Northwestern maintained its doubles hot streak this past week at the ITA Midwest Regional Championships, sending two pairings to the tournament’s final.

The No. 4 doubles team, featuring seniors Erin Larner and Maddie Lipp, defeated junior Lee Or and senior Alex Chatt 8-4 to claim the regional title. The showdown put Chatt and Lipp, who played 30 doubles matches together in the 2016-17 season, on opposite sides of the net in the doubles championship.

“It’s always hard to play against a teammate,” Lipp said. “But the important thing was that it was an all-Northwestern final.”

Both pairings had to beat four consecutive opponents to reach the title match. NU’s third team, freshman Inci Ogut and junior Rheeya Doshi, was unable to escape the second round.

Doshi, however, turned things around in the singles draw. She entered the match with only one singles win in the fall, but flipped the script and breezed through the first two rounds in straight sets.

In the round of 16, Doshi faced off against one of the tournament’s top seeds, Notre Dame’s Allison Miller. After dropping the opening set, Doshi fought back and took the final two to secure a 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory.

“I was making too many mistakes,” Doshi said. “I knew I could come back. I just had to work hard for every point and be aggressive when I got the opportunities.”

Doshi took down her teammate, Or, in the quarterfinals before falling in the semifinals.

Or, meanwhile, also impressed in the singles slate with an upset of the No. 6 ranked player in the nation, Michigan’s Kate Fahey. The junior lost the first set 6-1, but rallied to win the match 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 before falling to Doshi.

Chatt escaped the first singles round with a tight three-set victory, but fell to Michigan’s Chiara Lommer — the No. 115 player in the nation — in the second. Lommer went on to win the singles tournament.

The other participating Cats players, Larner, Lipp and Ogut, combined to go 2-3 in the individual draw.

“I came out with the wrong mindset,” Larner said. “My level of play has gotten very high because of my aggressive style, but I didn’t play that way for whatever reason.”

The regionals followed a trend set in earlier tournaments this fall. NU performed masterfully in the doubles bracket but fell victim to inconsistency in the singles draw.

With just two fall tournaments remaining, the Cats will look to improve their singles results and continue their doubles supremacy.

“As a team we have had a pretty good fall thus far,” Larner said. “Everyone is excited to cap off the fall with a bang.”

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