After winning the Division III national championsip, women’s tennis is off to a strong start in the fall season. (Dylan Whiting | Contributing Photographer)

Last year, the WashU women’s tennis team etched itself into the history books, becoming the school’s first national champions in the women’s competition. Expectations are sky-high for the team, which returned to the Division III field ranked No. 1, at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) regionals on Sept. 19-22, a new program-record. Four Bears qualified for the ITA nationals, building off of their strong season last year.  

The team took seven singles competitors and four doubles pairings, including the No. 3 duo of sophomore Caitlin Bui and junior Eleanor Archer, who won the national ITA doubles cup last fall. Also competing in doubles were first-year Lily Brecknock and sophomore Sam Slowik, sophomore Ally Lin and senior Eliana Hanna, and seniors Amber Edmonds and Teleya Blunt. These players, excluding Slowik and Blunt, also competed in the singles section along with junior Emily Chiasson.

The first day of competition on Friday saw every Bear competing advance fairly easily, with the team only dropping one set in all their matches. On Saturday and Sunday, the team carried their winning momentum. In doubles, Archer and Bui defeated a pairing from Adrian College 8-0 and then conference opponents from Case Western Reserve University 8-7. In a funny coincidence, they were matched up against Brecknock and Slowik in the semifinals, beating their teammates 8-3. 

Lin and Hanna, on the other side of the bracket, also advanced to the finals to meet Archer and Bui. This was the first time that the ITA regionals finals had an all-WashU matchup. By reaching the final, all four qualified for the national ITA Cup taking place in Georgia in October. 

Doubles seems to consistently be a strong point of the team over the past years, but it has been no coincidence, according to head coach Paige Madara. 

“Our team greatly enjoys playing doubles, and finding strong chemistry between partners has been an important piece of our team’s success,” she wrote in a statement to Student Life. “We focus a lot on doubles skills and strategy in practices, which helps us to be adaptable against a variety of opponents. Our doubles teams had great results this weekend, and we are excited to be sending two doubles teams to [the] ITA Cup for the first time in program history.”

In their singles matches, the Bears started to drop against stiff competition, with only Hanna advancing past the quarterfinals. On Monday, she beat Kiara Komlodi from Kenyon University 7-5, 6-3 in the semifinals. Going up against Sarena Biria of the University of Chicago in the final, Hanna took the first set 6-2, but then lost the next two sets 2-6, 4-6.

“I was really happy with the way I played. I think there’s definitely more to come,” Hanna said.

“I definitely lost some gas in that final, and I wish I could’ve pulled it out. But, I think that just is going to come with practice over the season … I feel like I was playing really, really strong tennis, and I was able to come back from things that I feel like in the past … I wouldn’t have been able to overcome and persevere through.”

Speaking on Hanna’s strong performance, Madara praised both her physical and mental growth.

“She has greatly improved her mental and physical toughness over the last few seasons, and that hard work is paying off with strong results,” she wrote. “Eliana was a key component to our success last season, and she has picked up this fall right where she left off last spring. Eliana had some great wins over the weekend, including defeating a perennial top 10 player in Kenyon’s Lazardiou on her way to the final.” 

For a team trying to maintain its status as national champions, taking the most athletes to ITA nationals in program history is a strong way to start. For Hanna individually, she’s hoping to make the most of every competition, but also just enjoy her last year of collegiate tennis.

“​​I definitely think coming out of last season as a National Player to Watch and winning the national championship and having all eyes on our team, and then going to ITA regionals and doing well [is] a lot of pressure,” she said. “But the way I’m taking it and looking at it is [that] I’m a senior, and this is my last year on the team … I think I’m just trying to find the joy and the fun in it. And hopefully, that comes with another natty champ and more wins.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated at 10:02 a.m. on September 30th to indicate that women’s tennis was most recently ranked No. 1 in the nation, not No. 16.