No. 13 Vanderbilt Women’s Tennis rounded out its regular season with wins over Kentucky and No. 9 Tennessee on April 11 and 13, respectively. With the wins, the Commodores will head into the postseason with an 18-5 (11-4 SEC) record, sitting in fifth place in the SEC.
Vanderbilt vs. Kentucky
Vanderbilt started its day sluggish, dropping the doubles point for the second time in three matches. The No. 14 nationally ranked duo of Celia-Belle Mohr and Sophia Webster fell to the No. 57 doubles pair of Ellie Eades and Lizzy Stevens, 6-3. The Wildcats secured the doubles point when Zoe Hammond and Asuncion Jadue defeated Valeria Ray and Bridget Stammel. Although Sonya Macavei and Amy Stevens were tied with Kentucky’s Ellie Myers and Julia Zhu at four apiece, the match was abandoned after Kentucky won the doubles point.
However, Vanderbilt rebounded on the singles side of play, winning all but one of the matches to send the Wildcats home empty-handed. Ray started with a straight-set defeat of Zhu, 6-1, 6-0. Stammel followed Ray’s lead, gathering a dominant two-set win of her own — 6-2, 6-2 — and tallied the Commodores’ second point of the day.
No. 17 Mohr extended Vanderbilt’s lead with a straight-set defeat of No. 40 Hammond — 6-2, 6-4. Kentucky prevented the singles sweep when Jadue defeated Trinetra Vijayakumar 7-6 (4), 6-4, but the Commodores pushed on. After dropping her first set to Tess Bucher 4-6, Webster regained her footing and took the next two sets 7-5 and 6-4, solidifying the win for the ‘Dores.
Vanderbilt head coach Aleke Tsoubanos was pleased with her team’s dominance in singles play after dropping the doubles point.
“I’m really proud of the way we responded after dropping the doubles point,” Tsoubanos said. “We came out strong on four of the singles courts.”
No. 13 Vanderbilt vs. No. 9 Tennessee
Two days after the win over Kentucky, Vanderbilt hosted No. 9 Tennessee for Senior Day. The match turned into an all-out battle that lasted an incredible six hours and saw multiple tiebreak match points. When all was said and done, though, No. 13 Vanderbilt emerged victorious over its in-state rival, 4-3.
Vanderbilt failed to clinch the doubles point yet again. Volunteers Elza Tomase and Saray Yli-Piipari opened the day with a 6-1 win over Ray and Stammel. After Mohr and Webster got themselves out of a 3-0 deficit to level the set at five apiece, the duo failed to deliver the win, falling to No. 36 Catherine Aulia and Leyla Britez Risso. With the two losses, Tennessee took the doubles point, and play transitioned into singles.
Mohr put the first point on the board for the Commodores when she defeated No. 6 Tomase in a dominant two-set outing, 6-3, 6-4. The Volunteers fought back, though, with Britez Risso defeating Stammel in a comeback three-set win — 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 — to retake the lead. Tennessee tacked another point onto its lead when Francesca Mattoli defeated Webster in another three-set match, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Still, Vanderbilt refused to back down with the Volunteers ahead 3-1. Ray defeated No. 36 Aulia in a gritty three-set match, 6-7 (8), 6-0, 6-3, and Stevens evened the score when she quickly disposed of Conley Raidt, 6-0, 6-2.
With the score tied at three, all eyes were on Vijayakumar and Vanesa Suarez. Despite falling in the first set 3-6, Vijayakumar quickly rebounded to win the second set 6-4. The third set was an all-out battle, eventually going to a tiebreaker where the first-year emerged victorious 7-6 (9). Vijayakumar’s triumph solidified the Senior Day victory and marked Vanderbilt’s first win over its in-state rival since 2022.
Tsoubanos was once again delighted by her team’s performance.
“I am just so proud of the performance our team put together today on Senior Day against a great Tennessee team that I have so much respect for,” Tsoubanos said. “It was one of those college tennis matches that, unfortunately, somebody had to come out on the short end because both teams competed so well that it was going to end in heartbreak for one of them.”
Vanderbilt Women’s Tennis is now in its postseason, starting with the SEC Tournament from April 16–20 in Auburn, Alabama. Vanderbilt will hold the five-seed, meaning it has a first-round bye and will face the winner of 12-seeded Florida and 13-seeded Alabama.
