While Penn students took a hiatus from midterms and homework for fall break, women's tennis was at the courts, dominating the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast Regionals.
The tournament was held from Oct. 9 to Oct. 14 and saw the Quakers send two doubles teams to the quarterfinals and three singles players to the Round of 16. The tournament culminated in junior Esha Velaga taking the trophy, allowing her to qualify for NCAAs for the third year in a row and setting a record for Penn.
The Red and Blue came out strong on the first day of the tournament, with freshmen Varsha Vedula and Joleen Saw winning two qualifying matches each to earn a spot in the main draw. For both of them, it took the first match to find their footing. Vedula just barely won her first match before wrapping up her second with two quick sets.
“[She] had a really tough three set match … and then kind of caught on fire after that and realized that her skill set is good enough to compete against the players that she … needed to compete against … and it was wonderful to see,” coach Sanela Kunovac said.
Saw had similar scores as her first match also went to three sets, and her second was much simpler with a final score of 6-1, 6-3.
The two went on in the main draw as well, with Varsha winning in the first round 6-1, 6-1 and Saw winning in three sets. Velaga, senior Maya Urata, and sophomore Lara Stojanovski also won in the first round (6-2, 6-2; 6-1, 6-0; and 6-3, 6-3, respectively). Unfortunately, their teammates – sophomore Sarah Wang and juniors Sasha Motlah and Liza Tkachenko – fell in straight sets.
Day two kicked off doubles and team play. Urata and Saw (8-4), Vedula and sophomore Sarah Wang (8-3), Velaga and Stojanovski (8-2) all prevailed. Despite it being early in the season, the doubles pairings have performed well and are becoming more refined with each opportunity to compete.
“There’s no substitute for experience," Kunovac said. “So it's really nice to have players that can be matched with multiple different play styles. That's … definitely the case with this freshman class.”
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Doubles did end soon though, as Vedula and Wang lost in the Round of 32, and teams Velaga and Stojanovski and Urata and Saw lost in the Round of 16.
In the singles Round of 32, Velaga, Urata, and Saw pulled off wins. Velaga barely let her opponent on the scoreboard, and Saw also had a relatively clean match and took straight sets.
Urata’s match, however, looked quite different. After losing the first set in a tiebreaker, she was down early in the second. But she managed to fight her way back to a 7-6 tiebreaker win, forcing a third set. Her willpower carried her through the match, as she blazed through the third set, ending with a dominant score of 6-1. The match ended up being more of a mental battle than a physical one.
“[That match was like] coming back from the ashes, almost, because it wasn't just about tennis," Kunovac said. “It was also the emotional investment in that match, and emotional strain and the meaning of it … [Urata] found a way to climb into that match and kind of assert herself and say, ‘I’m not gonna go away.’”
Next, in the Round of 16, Saw fell 6-1, 6-2 to Princeton's Eva Elbaz, while Velaga and Urata both won in straight sets. At this point in the tournament, Velaga was still yet to drop a set. The quarterfinals saw the remaining two Quakers stumble a bit. Urata, unable to hit a stride throughout the match, lost to Princeton player Alice Ferlito 6-3, 6-0.
Velaga had a tough matchup as well, where she dropped the second set 6-3 after winning the first 6-3. The third set was close, but Velaga defended against match point before coming back and winning in a tiebreaker.
In the semifinals, Velaga’s straight set victory not only landed her in the championship match but also qualified her for NCAA Championships. She is the first player at Penn to qualify for NCAAs three years in a row. The championship match wasn’t a given, and Velaga fought hard for the trophy. She lost the first set 6-3, but rallied back to win the other two sets narrowly, at 7-5 each, granting Velaga the trophy for the second time in her career.
Her first win was as a freshman, when she also won Rookie of the Year. As a sophomore, she made it to the finals but lost to teammate and class of 2025 graduate Sabine Rutlauka.
“I’m thinking that the history books needs to be off the shelf, because we keep taking it off the shelf to write Esha’s scores and accomplishments,” coach Kunovac said, “So those kinds of things [her accomplishments] tell me that she has so much more left before she reaches her ceiling, and I am proud of how she competed.”
But the team isn’t satisfied yet. Velaga’s teammates are still aiming to qualify for NCAAs through the Ivy Conference Masters, which take place at Harvard from Oct. 24 to Oct. 26.
