Lazaridou advances, Owls bow out of doubles play

CLAREMONT, Cailf. -- Kenyon College junior Eleni Lazaridou won two matches Saturday and advanced into the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Singles Championship. Later in the day, when Lazaridou was paired with first-year Hana Nouaime, the Kenyon duo dropped their first-round match of the Doubles Championship.

Lazaridou's day started with a singles match against Addison Felts of the University of Mary Washington. Lazaridou earned an early break and got on a roll, taking a 3-1 and then a 5-1 advantage in the first set. Felts made the right adjustments and came storming back to tie the set at 5-5. Lazaridou, however, responded well to the pressure and closed it out at 7-5.

Lazaridou then went on to easily claim the second set and the match, posting a 6-1 win to advance to the second round.

In that second round, Lazaridou brought her 'A' game and looked even sharper in her match against Erica Ekstrand, a graduate student from the University of Chicago and the No. 6-seeded player in the 32-women bracket.

Again, Lazaridou built an early cushion, moving ahead 4-1. Ekstrand then flipped the momentum while winning three of the next four games. Clinging to a 5-4 lead, Lazaridou handled the pressure again and, with Ekstrand serving, won the next game to log a 6-4 set-one victory.

Ekstrand, who made it to the Singles Championship semifinal round last season playing at Williams College, took control in the second set. She won three straight games to take a 4-1 lead, but Lazaridou battled back. The Kenyon No. 1 rallied to get within 5-4 and then, with Ekstrand serving, didn't allow her opponent to reach set point. Lazaridou not only took that game to tie things up and 5-5, but went on to finish things off with two more games and a 7-5 triumph.

Lazaridou, who now owns a 17-2 singles record, will face Emily Kantrovitz in tomorrow's quarterfinal round at 1 p.m. Kantrovitz, of Emory University, is 26-4 and is the tournament's No. 2 seeded player.

When Saturday play moved to doubles competition, Lazaridou and Nouaime were unable to chalk up another win for Kenyon. The two got matched up against Alisha Chulani and Rebecca Kong, who had the distinct advantage of playing on their home courts at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

Lazaridou and Nouaime played catch-up for most of the match. In the first set, they caught Chulani and Kong at 5-5, but the C-M-S pair put away the next two games for an opening 7-5 win. The second set was similar, with the Kenyon team not being able to gain a lead. The Owls did tie things up at 3-3, but the C-M-S team got the next two and went on to log a 6-4 closing score.

While Lazaridou moves on in singles play tomorrow, she and Nouaime concluded 2024-25 doubles play with a 15-6 record.

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Players Mentioned

Eleni Lazaridou: Junior

Hana Nouaime: First-Year

Players Mentioned

Eleni Lazaridou
: Junior

Hana Nouaime
: First-Year