Women's Tennis Welcomes New Faces in Early Matches

Coming off of a year marked by a 3rd-place finish in the Ivy League, the Harvard women’s tennis team opened the fall season this weekend at the 21st William & Mary Tribe Invitational with the addition of freshmen players Danielle Mirda, Monica Lin, Spencer Liang and June Lee.

Liang, who hails from Potomac, Md., paired up with sophomore Amy He to win matches against Wake Forest, 8-7, and Willam & Mary, 8-2, before falling to the University of South Carolina in the championship round of the Michelle O Doubles Flight. He and Liang fell to Ximena Silas-Luna and Meghan Blevins of USC, 8-1. Liang’s victory over Kimmy Guerin and Karen Forman of Wake Forest was the debut of her collegiate career, and her success in doubles was repeated by a fourth place finish in singles.

Other members of the team also opened their seasons with successes. Junior Sylvia Li and freshman Danielle Mirda finished third in their respective doubles flight with an 8-5 win over Dartmouth, while Monica Lin claimed fifth in singles play with a 2-1 record. Li, a veteran doubles player, held an 11-5 mark in doubles play in last season.

“I’m very pleased with the team, [and] we played a very strong tournament…. We gained solid preparation for the matches this fall,” Crimson head coach Traci Green said. Green, who has coached the team for the past six seasons, took the program from a 2-17 losing record in 2008 to consecutive third-place finishes in the Ivy League for the past two years.

The recent Tribe Invitational wasn’t held in the fashion of the typical collegiate tennis tournament. With more than seven teams in attendance and 14 flights of singles and doubles play combined, players on every team had opportunities to compete with schools all over the NCAA Division 1 rankings.

Harvard will experience a different format in next week’s All-American Championship, which features a prequalifying, qualifying, and main draw matches taking place from September 28th to October 6th.

“The All American is a very prestigious tournament, [and] we’re very fortunate to have four players invited. We’re taking it one day at a time.”