SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Wellesley College tennis began the 2025 portion of its schedule with an eye-opening 4-3 win at No. 30 Skidmore College on Saturday at the McCaffery-Wagman Tennis and Wellness Center. Saturday marks the first time since 2011 that the Blue (4-0) have toppled the Thoroughbreds (1-2).
Skidmore struck first, by taking the doubles point with wins at all three lines. The Thoroughbreds started by capturing No. 2 doubles 6-3. Senior Ella Provost (Hamilton, Mass.) and junior Beilynn Geiss (Loveland, Colo.) represented the Thoroughbreds against Blue junior Emilee Pak (Chicago, Ill.) and first year Rianna Mariotti (Forest Hills, N.Y.).
Sophomore Coco Prokop (New Orleans, La.) and first year Juliette Ceas (Albany, N.Y.) won No. 3 doubles for Skidmore by beating sophomore Suzanne Xu (Boyds, Md.) and first year Sophie Buttorff (Tacoma, Wash.) 7-5.
The closest match was No. 1 doubles. Blue first years Kotistha Modak (Chennai, India) and Sofia Corte-Real (Stamford, Conn.) went to war with ranked seniors Konika Dhull (Chandigarh, India) and Grace Truong (Burke, Va.). The hosts won a back-and-forth affair 7-6(8).
Provost gave the Thoroughbreds a point with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Corte-Real at No. 3 singles. Wellesley fired back with two points to even the match at 2-2. Buttorff started the scoring for the Blue with a tactical 7-6, 6-4 win over Geiss at No. 4 singles.
Modak followed by taking out No. 29 nationally ranked Dhull 6-4, 7-5 at the top singles spot to make a statement for Wellesley. First year Nandini Patel (Phoenix, Ariz.) pushed Wellesley past Skidmore 3-2 with an important 6-3, 7-6 performance versus Prokop.
Xu locked up the match for Wellesley in a three-set war with Truong at No. 2 singles. After taking the first set 7-5, Xu dropped the second 6-3. Undeterred, the sophomore stepped up for a big 6-4 third frame to claim the match.
In the final line of the day, Kriti Sarav went the distance with Ceas at No. 6. Ceas won the opening set tiebreak before Sarav captured the second via tiebreak. In the 10-point tiebreaker decider, it was Ceas taking a 10-6 match to end it 4-3 in Wellesley's favor.
The Blue have a quick turnaround, playing at No. 40 RPI tomorrow at 2:00 PM.
