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Courtesy of CMS Athletics--
Lindsay Eisenman overcame dropping a tight second set, and falling behind 2-0 in the third, to take a three-set win over Jacqueline Soloveychik of Wesleyan for the NCAA Division III Singles championship on Tuesday at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
CMS Athletics Release
Eisenman won the match 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4 to become the second singles national champion in CMS women's tennis history. Kristin Lim, who was inducted into the CMS Hall of Fame in January, was the first to do it in 2011.
Eisenman cruised to a first-set win, but Soloveychik regrouped and took an early 3-1 lead in the second set. Eisenman battled back and went ahead 6-5 with a chance to win, and had two match points at 30-40 on Soloveychik's serve. On the first one, a string broke on her racket on the return, and Soloveychik was able to win a lengthy point on the second one to send it to a tiebreaker.
Eisenman got off to a quick 3-0 lead in the tiebreaker, but Solveychik battled back to go ahead 6-4. Eisenman fought off the first set point, but Soloveychik was able to send it to the third with a 7-5 tiebreaker win.
In the tiebreaker, Eisenman hit big winners in key spots to earn the championship. Trailing 2-0 and facing a deuce point, she painted the line with a big winner to cut the lead to 2-1. With the score 4-4, she came back from down 15-40 to break serve, hitting another big deuce point winner at the net. She then was able to hold serve with the last two points after it was tied 30-30 to win the individual championship.
Eisenman came one win from taking the ITA Cup singles title as a sophomore, but studied abroad this past fall. She entered the NCAA Division III Singles Championship as the No. 8 seed, and was able to beat the No. 2 seed (Emily Kantrovitz of Emory) and the No. 5 seed (Soloveychik) in the final two rounds. She also beat Lane Durkin of Wesleyan, who had a 22-match win streak coming in dating back to September 20, in the quarterfinal round.
Advik Mareedu won the men's singles title for the Stags yesterday, giving CMS both singles champions this year. The last time that happened was in 2019 when Emory's Jonathan Jemison and Ysabel González-Rico accomplished the feat.
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