(Portions of this story taken from the Southwestern University athletics website)
HOUSTON, Texas – Alli Ziehm and Emma Kesterson delivered the Southwestern women's tennis program's second ITA Regional Doubles Championship in the first all-Southwestern final in school history.
In the championship match, Ziehm and Kesterson defeated teammates Nina Mitrofanova and Lydia Lee, winning 6-4, 6-4, to become the program's newest All-Americans and the second Southwestern doubles team to win the ITA Regional Championship.
Kate Daugherty and Esther Bowers '21 previously won the doubles championship in 2017, making it to the ITA Oracle Cup semifinals.
Among other SCAC competing teams, the Trinity duo of senior Megan Flores and sophomore Cate Cushing opened the weekend's action with three-straight swift victories at tallies of 8-3, 8-1 and 8-1 to find their way into the semifinal round, but suffered an 8-6 defeat to Southwestern's Mitrofanova and Lee.
In singles play, Southwestern's Kesterson and Lee both made a run to the semifinals but Kesterson lost to the University of Texas at Dallas's Suzuka Nishino 6-2, 6-4, and Lee lost to UT-Dallas' Samantha Wong 6-3, 6-4.
For Trinity, Cushing won 6-3, 7-5 over #13 seed Elyssa Ducret from the University of Texas-Dallas before falling to Kesterson (6-2, 6-3) while #3 seed Ruth Hill won 6-3, 6-3 over #15 seed Taylor Despriet of Southwestern before being bested by SU's Lee, 3-6, 6-1, 10-8.
University of St. Thomas hosted the event and the Celts' Anamaria Gonzalez battled it out to the round of 16 before falling to Southwestern's Lee in the Sweet Sixteen. Gonzalez and teammate Alejandra Lopez advanced to the quarterfinals of doubles play before falling to Southwestern's Mitrofanova and Lee.
Ziehm and Kesterson will compete in the ITA Cup in Rome, Ga. The tournament opens Thursday, Oct. 14, and ends Sunday, Oct. 17.
