Last weekend I visited Williamsburg, VA to gather with my family from upstate New York to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my great aunt and uncle. While I was in town I learned that the William & Mary women's tennis team would be playing a match versus the University of Pennsylvania on Easter Sunday. After going to church and then breakfast with my family at a local pancake house, I headed over to the William & Mary campus for the noon match.
It was a great day for tennis with plenty of sun and temperatures in the low 60s. The tennis center is right next to the basketball arena and it has plenty of space between the courts for spectators. William & Mary came into the match ranked #25 and 10-8 on the season. These are two good women's programs. Last season the Tribe took out Georgia Tech before the Lady Jackets went on their run to win the national championship. Penn was an NCAA tournament team last year and I saw them in the 2006 Atlanta regional, which Georgia Tech ended up winning. They came into the W&M match at 5-5, but I knew they were a talented team. I figured this would be a competitive match.
William & Mary won the doubles point with easy wins on court one and two, but court three turned out to be a great game with William & Mary winning in a tie break, 8-7. For the singles matches, I sat between courts two and three and saw some really good tennis. On two, Katarina Zoricic for W&M played Yulia Rivelis. They battled to a tie break in the first set before Zoricic won it. She had and easier time in set two winning it 6-3. On three, Ragini Acharya of W&M was matched up against Maria Anisimova. These two hit a lot of big groundstrokes and had plenty of good rallies. Anisimova did not like some of the calls on the other side of the net and was a little frustrated at times, but Acharva kept her head down and went on to a 6-1, 2-6, 6-1 win. William & Mary ended up winning the match 6-1, but it was closer than the score indicated.
William & Mary also has the number 10 ranked player in the country in Megan Moulton-Levy. The five foot senior has a great one-handed backhand and is extremely quick. She and Zoricic won their doubles match and then she won the first set of her singles match 6-1 and then her opponent retired. She likes to come to the net which is so nice to see in players today, as so few actually make that an integral part of their game.
Before the match started I had a nice conversation with Barb Zidek's father. They live in Chicago and try and see as many W&M matches as they can. They drove from Chicago for this one and even though his daughter was not in the lineup, he and his family were there supporting the team. I was really impressed. Barb also worked her way around the crowd during the match, promoting her weekly William & Mary sports talk show on William & Mary's radio station, WCWM, 90.9 FM. You can listen to the show every Sunday night from 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. in Williamsburg, or over the Internet at wcwm.org. If you get a chance, check it out.
Tomorrow I will be heading over to Winston-Salem, NC to see the Georgia Tech men's team take on Wake Forest. The Jackets started strong but have lost a few recently and are 11-8 and 1-5 in the ACC. Wake is 13-6 and 4-1 in the ACC. The Demon Deacons were a sweet 16 team last year and I expect this will be a good match. This will be the first time I get to see Georgia Tech play since I moved back to Charlotte. Go Jackets!
Time.
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