Winning Streak at Eight as No. 23 Yale Rallies Past Georgia State 5-2

Stevi Petrelli. (photo by Sam Rubin '95, Yale Sports Publicity)

Brook's Sweep at No. 1 Clinches Match

ATLANTA – Rallying from a 2-1 deficit, the No. 23 Yale women's tennis team extended its winning streak to eight matches by beating Georgia State 5-2 Sunday afternoon at Piedmont Park. The match took nearly five hours and included some epically long battles, capped by senior captain Stevi Petrelli's 13-11 win in a third-set tiebreaker that ended the day. The win snaps the Panthers' school-record nine-match winning streak.

Yale (11-2, 0-0 Ivy League) lost the doubles point for just the second time in the eight-match winning streak. At No. 1, junior Vicky Brook and senior Lindsay Clark quickly closed out Georgia State's Kir Kemp and Tereza Lerova, the No. 66 doubles team in the country, 8-2. But Georgia State won at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles to take the point. At No. 3, sophomore Elizabeth Epstein and freshman Blair Seideman fell behind 7-4 but rallied to take an 8-7 lead. Georgia State's Katerina Gresova and Martina Ondrackova fought off a couple match points and tied the score 8-8, then won the tiebreaker 7-5. That match wound up lasting nearly two hours.

After Seideman bounced back quickly to win 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3 singles, a win by Georgia State (9-1, 1-0 CAA) at No. 2 singles put the Bulldogs behind 2-1. But straight-set wins by junior Stephanie Kent (at No. 4) and freshman Annie Sullivan (at No. 6) gave the lead to Yale. For Sullivan, it was her eighth win in a row.

Brook then clinched the match by finishing off a 6-3, 7-5 win over Lerova at No. 1. That left the No. 6 singles match, Petrelli vs. Georgia State's Kir Kemp, as the last match on the courts. Petrelli claimed the first set 6-2, but the second set did not come nearly as easily. Kemp forced a tiebreaker, and then saved four match points before finally falling 13-11 more than two hours after the match began. Petrelli extended her winning streak to nine in a row.

During the winning streak, Yale's eight victories have come by a cumulative score of 47-8. The Bulldogs now face another group of Bulldogs, No. 11 Georgia, on Wednesday. Yale's spring break trip south also includes a neutral-site match vs. No. 57 Purdue on Thursday.

After the trip Yale returns to Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center, where the Bulldogs are undefeated, for a pair of matches on Mar. 27 vs. Quinnipiac and Fairleigh Dickinson. Yale is hosting a food and clothing drive on that day. Admission is free and fans are asked to bring food or clothing to support Connecticut Food Bank and Stepping Stone Emergency Housing.

Report by Sam Rubin '95 (sam.rubin@yale.edu), Yale Sports Publicity