Hanover, NH — Play at the 2011 men’s and women’s Individual Championships started this morning at Dartmouth’s Berry Sports Center.
In the first round of Ramsay Cup (women’s A Division) play, there were no upsets as the higher-seeded player in each match-up advanced. Number 2 seed Catalina Pelaez of Trinity had a scare from Sarah Mumanachit of Harvard, who was seeded 32nd coming into the tournament. Playing on the glass exhibition court, Mumanachit came back from losing the first game 6-11 to win the next two 11-5, 12-10. Pelaez regrouped and won the fourth game 11-2 before closing the match with an authoritative 11-2 win.
Last year’s Ramsay Cup finalist, Pamela Hathway of Trinity, had a scare of her own in the opening round, thanks to another Harvard player, Natasha Kingshott. Kingshott, seeded 28th, won the first and third games, but fifth-seeded Hathway hung on to win 13-11 in the fourth. Hathway took the match with an 11-7 win in the fifth.
The Trinity senior couldn’t repeat her feat in the round of 16. Facing twelfth-seeded Rachael Goh of Penn, Hathway lost the fifth game 8-11 after winning the first and third. Goh will face Julie Cerullo of Princeton in the quarterfinals.
Goh’s win wasn’t the only upset of the evening; Nirasha Gurgue of Harvard, who came into the tournament seeded sixteenth, upset sixth-seeded Valeria Wiens of Dartmouth in four.
Also advancing to the quarters was last year’s Ramsay Cup champion, Laura Gemmell of Harvard. Gemmell defeated Princeton’s Alexis Saunders 3-0 in the first round, and then had a bumpier trip in the round of 16 against Cornell’s Jaime Laird. Laird pushed Gemmell in a close first game and then won the second, but Gemmell came back strong to take the next two games and win in four.
Millie Tomlinson and Logan Greer, both of Yale, also advanced.
As of publication, the results of the round of 16 matches between Pelaez and Kim Hay, and Nabilla Ariffin and Pamela Chua had yet to be reported.
Thanks to a number of close matches, the Pool Trophy (men’s A Division) matches were already backed up by midday. There were two upsets in the first round. One was between two players seeded back-to-back: Richard Dodd of Yale (seeded sixteenth) and Andres Duany of Rochester (seeded seventeenth). Duany defeated Dodd with three 11-6 games.
The other opening round upset was one of the most exciting matches of the afternoon. Playing before a home crowd, Darmouth’s Chris Hanson, the number 7 seed, outlasted Kelly Shannon of Princeton 15-13 and 13-11 in the first two games. Shannon, who was seeded 26th, came back from being down 0-2 to win the next three games 11-6, 11-9, 11-7.
Although the higher seeded players in all the other opening round match-ups advanced, many had to work hard for their wins. Gabe de Melo of F&M, Thomas Spettigue of Cornell, John Roberts of Yale, and Kenneth Chan of Yale all prevailed in five-game matches to advance to the next round.
The men should be playing late into the evening, but as of publication, Vikram Malhotra of Trinity had advanced to the semifinals with a 3-0 win over Spettigue, and last year’s Pool Trophy finalist, Todd Harrity of Princeton, had moved forward with a 3-0 win over Duany. Nick Sachvie of Cornell and Beni Fischer of Rochester have also advanced.
The men’s and women’s B Division draws were both larger than the A Division draws. A number of players in the Holleran Cup (women’s B Division) had opening round byes. Caroline Feeley (Princeton), Kristine Bell (Vassar), Mary Foster (Wesleyan), Vidushi Gurunada (Mount Holyoke), Abby Jenkins (Middlebury), Katie Quan (Columbia), Kelly Barnes (George Washington), Andrea Echeverria (Trinity), Robyn Williams (Trinity), Maggie Remsen (Cornell), Dori Rahbar (Brown), Alli Rubin (Williams), and Lexi Glassman (Cornell) all advanced with wins.
Of those players, only Gurunada of Mount Holyoke advanced to the round of 16. Gurunada won her first two games against Williams’ Courtney Bogle, who was seeded twelfth in the draw. Then Bogle came back to win the next two, forcing a fifth. Gurunada, ranked 21st, pushed back to win the fifth 11-6.
Also advancing to the round of 16 were Robyn Hodgson (Trinity), Samantha Buechner (Stanford), Sarah Domenick (Brown), Nikki Sequeira (Princeton), Gwen Tilghman (Yale), Katie Giovinazzo (Princeton), Courtney Jones (Penn), Lauren Gesswein (Bowdoin), Randima Ranaweera (Mount Holyoke), Emery Holton (Trinity), Alexandra Sawin (Princeton), Shara Robertson (Mount Holyoke), Kyla Sherwood (Stanford), Casey Cortes (Princeton), and Jackie Shea (George Washington).
In the Molloy Cup (B Division), Caleb Garza (Connecticut College), Juan Flores (Trinity), Blake Reinson (Brown), Anthony Zou (Columbia), Hunter Bouchard (Navy), Adrian Leanza (Brown), Will Gruner (Williams), Andrew Bernard (Bowdoin), Harry Smith (Colby), William Morris (Williams), Brad Thompson (Brown), John Steele (Wesleyan), Alex Dodge (St. Lawrence), Jeremy Herrmann (Williams), Graham Miao (Columbia), and Sam Gould (Stanford). Garza’s win over Alex Gross, Zou’s win over Trevor McGuinness, Bernard’s win over Amay Merchant, Miao’s win over Allan Lutz, and Gould’s win over Andrew Kriete were all upsets.
The players to advance to the round of 16 were Thompson, Bouchard, Leanza, Flores, Christopher Jung (Dartmouth), Robert Maycock (Dartmouth), Omar Sohby (George Washington), Johan Detter (Trinity), Nigel Koh (Harvard), Ryan Dowd (Yale), Mike Lewis (Dartmouth), Robert Berner (Yale), Zeke Scherl (Harvard), Juan Pablo Gaviria (Rochester), Matt Domenick (Rochester), and Joe Chapman (Rochester).
For complete results, see the live brackets that are being updated throughout the weekend.
