Women’s Tennis Begins with a Loss

Team looks to improve after slow startAddy CamisaThe Santa Clara February 1, 2018The Santa Clara Women’s Tennis team lost 5-2 against the University of California, Davis in their dual match opener this past Saturday in Davis, Calif. They competed at the UC Davis Marya Welch Tennis Center.Junior Madison Clarke and senior Team Captain Zeina El Tawil won the team’s two points in singles play. Despite a doubles win by sophomore Maddie Pothoff and freshman Katya Tabachnik, the team lost the doubles points on courts two and three.The team begins their season with a 0-1 record after going up against the bigger, 3-0 Aggies this past weekend.“We would have loved to get a win but I was actually overall happy with what we did,” said Head Coach Ben Cabell. “We had a little bit of bad luck, one of our players was sick ... But overall, we put in a good effort, competed really well and we still almost pulled it off.”In their match against Davis, Tabachnik was sick, but this did not stop her from securing the doubles win alongside Pothoff.“I thought our competitiveness and our returning players performed very well,” Cabell said. “There were two that won and that’s great to see the players who have been here, been through our program, that are continuing to get better.”Coach Cabell explained that Clarke and El Tawil were particularly strong this past weekend. Clarke, a junior from Phoenix, is a first-team, all conference player. She won her match in singles play. El Tawil, who hails from Cairo, Egypt, also won her singles match.Cabell looks to make some improvements after the team’s points resulted from singles play.“We’re working on our doubles since we have four new players playing in and out of the lineup,” Cabell said. “We need to establish doubles teams to find out who’s going to be effective in what positions and partnered with who. We’ve done a lot of preparation, now we need to get experience and play matches and go from there.”The women’s team will play the University of California, Berkeley next Saturday, Feb. 3 in Berkeley, Calif. On Feb. 4, the team will play their dual match home opener against California State University, Northridge. Cabell and the team are looking forward to playing next weekend.Cal is a Pac-12 team, in the Top 10 in the state and a contender for the National Championship.“I think the most exciting thing for that for us is that we feel with this team that we can win in any position,” Cabell said. “That gives us a chance. We may not beat them, they may be good, but we don’t feel like we’re giving any spots away. We’re good at every position.”Contact Addy Camisa at acamisa@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.