Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
South Carolina (Round of 64)
Players Mentioned
Rally Falls Short as South Carolina Tops Women's Tennis in NCAA First Round
May 09, 2015 | Women's Tennis
Video: Post-match video with head coach Laura Granville and Lindsay Graff
Needing to sweep the last three matches on court to win Saturday's NCAA first-round match against South Carolina, the Princeton women's tennis team took care of the first two, but that last point was elusive.
South Carolina dashed the Tigers' hopes of advancing to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the second straight year, securing a 4-3 win at Virginia after taking the doubles point and splitting the six singles matches.
Princeton bounced back from losing that doubles point to win five of the six first sets. Though South Carolina's Caroline Dailey closed out her first-set win in straight sets on court two, Princeton took three other matches in straight sets, with Katrine Steffensen winning on court four, Alanna Wolff gutting out a tiebreak and closing out her match in two on court three, and Lindsay Graff ending her Tiger career with a win over national No. 45 Elixane Lechemia with a second-set tiebreak.
South Carolina won the first three-setter to be decided before Graff and Wolff won their matches, so the Tigers went into the last three matches still going needing a sweep. Graff got the first one to make it 3-2 and Wolff tied it at 3-3.
The focus then shifted to court five, where Dorothy Tang was battling Ximena Siles Luna for the decisive point. Tang had won the first set 6-3 before Siles Luna flipped that score around in the second set and closed it out with a 6-2 win in the final frame.
The defeat closes a season that saw Princeton win back-to-back Ivy League titles for the second time in a seven-year span and advance to the NCAA tournament for the second time in that span as well.
| 3 |  |
(45) Princeton (12-9) vs. (29) South Carolina (15-10) May 9, 2015 • Charlottesville, Va. |
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4 |
Doubles
| 1 | Graff/Wolff (P) | |
(40) Berg/Dailey (SC) | 8-4 |
| 2 | Muliawan/Tang (P) | DNF | Blevins/Meghan Cochran (SC) | 6-4 SC |
| 3 | Emily Hahn/Steffensen (P) | |
Lechemia/Siles Luna (SC) | 8-1 |
Singles
| 1 | Lindsay Graff (P) | |
(45) Elixane Lechemia (SC) | 6-4, 7-6(7) |
| 2 | Amanda Muliawan (P) | |
(121) Caroline Dailey (SC) | 6-3, 6-2 |
| 3 | Alanna Wolff (P) | |
Meghan Blevins (SC) | 7-6(5), 6-4 |
| 4 | Katrine Steffensen (P) | |
Brigit Folland (SC) | 6-3, 7-5 |
| 5 | Dorothy Tang (P) | |
Ximena Siles Luna (SC) | 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 |
| 6 | Katie Goepel (P) | |
Hadley Berg (SC) | 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 |
| Match notes: Princeton's last four NCAA first-round matches have been 4-3 finals, with Princeton winning in 2014 ... Princeton was aiming to become the first Ivy League team since Yale in 2011 and '12 to win NCAA tournament matches in back-to-back years and just the fourth all-time (Harvard '96 and '97, Penn in '01 and '02) ... Lindsay Graff's win over 45th-ranked Elixane Lechemia was the highest-ranked opponent Graff defeated as a Tiger, surpassing a win over 46th-ranked Elizabeth Epstein of Yale in 2013. |
| Order of finish: Doubles: 3,2; Singles: 2,4,6,1,3,5 |
ITA rankings in parentheses