Will Horowitz examines the women’s tennis team’s success at the ITA Tournament.

From Fri., Oct. 23 to Tues., Oct. 27, the Yale Women’s Varsity Tennis Team competed in the Wilson/ITA Division I Women’s Northeast Regional Indoor Championship held at Yale’s Cullman-Heyman Indoor Tennis Center—one of the premier tournaments of the year featuring every Division I school in the region, which extends from Canada to Maryland.

To qualify, a selection committee of coaches from the region decided which players from the region should play, a fact that might seem daunting to casual fans. Tournament Director, Duke Diaz, however, assured me that “[the coaches] know most of the players personally, so they can select pretty well.”

This is the first year Yale has held the tournament, and the team marked the center’s hosting debut with success befitting the occasion. Of Yale’s six singles and three doubles teams entrants into the tournament—the maximum allowed—one doubles team made it to the finals and two singles players made it to the quarterfinals.

As a team, players agreed that Yale had an extremely strong showing: “We’re definitely pleased as a team at the overall results,” said Victoria Brook, PC ’12. Head Coach Danielle McNamara concurred: “We’ve definitely shown that we have a very deep team this year.” Indeed, Yale’s success this past weekend was no fluke, according to McNamara. “We’ve played four tournaments this year and overall our team has performed well at each one,” she said.

This fall, besides the Regional Indoor Championship, the team has competed at the University of Maryland Invitational Tournament, the Cissie Leary Memorial Tournament at University of Pennsylvania, and the USTA Invitational in Flushing Meadows, Queens. McNamara explained that the fall season is the shortest for tennis—which is not a single-season sport—so it is often used as a time to finalize doubles teams and test out the waters, while also making it “important to take advantage of every match you get to play,” said Brook.

The relatively short time of play, though, has produced some stunning results. During the tournament, the doubles team of Brook and Stephanie Kent, SM ’12, defeated the number-one seed in the doubles draw from Princeton, a result that buoyed the whole team’s morale. “To get the upset showed us what we are capable of, and the match was thoroughly enjoyable because it felt like all of our hard work leading up to the tournament was coming to fruition,” said Brook.

However, McNamara was most impressed with the performance of Jessica Rhees, SY ’10. “Jessie lost in quarters but she had a couple great wins to get there,” said McNamara. “I think she beat the tenth seed and the seventh and actually the eventual winner took her to seven and then six games, which was by far her closest match of the tournament.”

More generally, McNamara is pleased with the team’s progress over the course of the year so far: “I’m really pleased with the doubles play over the fall,” she said. “No particular team has improved a lot since we usually determine what our teams will be in the fall so we mix them up a bit, but individually everyone’s game is improving.”

ONE POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR the team’s success is home court advantage. “I definitely think homecourt advantage helps. We’re undefeated at home in dual season in the last two years,” she said. “Our players just love playing here and they themselves mentioned how excited they were to play on our courts.”

Players agreed. “Playing at home was irreplaceable. It is so nice being able to use the locker rooms and team room as a haven from the madness of the rest of the tournament,” said Brook. “Likewise, playing on courts that you’re very familiar with is such a great feeling, especially when your opponents are providing you enough problems to worry about in the game.” She added that the same tournament last year at Penn was “nowhere near as much fun,” partially because it was not at home but also because the courts are so separated it is difficult to cheer on your teammates.

Duke Diaz, the co-director of the tournament with McNamara and the Director of Tennis Operations, had a different hypothesis: “With midterm season, it’s always an advantage to be able to go back to your room and get a couple hours of studying done,” he said.

In addition to a stellar athletic performance, the tournament was extremely well organized, especially given the magnitude of the event. The tournament consisted of 35 schools, with a singles draw of 88 women and 128 doubles players. Despite the large numbers, though, “It couldn’t have run much smoother,” said Diaz. In fact, the matches were played so punctually that team members “even played consolation single matches on Sunday, which is something that’s not mandatory but we wanted to keep the tennis going.”

McNamara agreed, saying that she “got nothing but compliments from fellow coaches.” Brook confirmed, “Everyone did a great job.”

 

The directors, though, don’t get all the credit, according to Diaz: “[Cullman-Heyman Indoor Tennis Center] is a magnificent facility for running a large tournament—there’s a huge lobby and it’s open to all the courts, so at the tournament desk you can see almost every court.”

The fact that the tournament ran so smoothly is even more gratifying to the directors, given the relatively new status of the Cullman-Heyman Indoor Tennis Center. The center was built last October, and since opening it has come to be known as one of the finest facilities in the Northeast. In fact, the facility is so well respected that Yale was selected to hold the 2009 ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, the nation’s premier collegiate indoor tennis tournament, and the second of only three national championships for college tennis.

The facility is of such high quality, Diaz said, that it has been used for some professional matches: “We actually played a semifinal of the Pilot Pen US Open Tour event in August, and we had Fernando Verdasco and Aemilie Mauresmo play there, and they raved about the facility.”

The Center seems to be living up to its hype. “The regional tournament was our third major ITA event in one year,” said Diaz. “We built the place to be one of the premier facilities in the country and to host major national events.”

And it’s not just aesthetically pleasing: The new facility has significantly raised the status of Yale’s tennis program. “There are very few schools that are capable of hosting something like the Regionals just because you need so many indoor courts,” said McNamara. “It’s not that common to have eight indoor courts. To be in the same league as schools like Michigan and Ohio State is huge for us in terms of recruiting purposes.”

However, the facility raised some eyebrows at the donor’s industry of choice. The center is dedicated to Joseph Cullman, BR ’35, the former CEO of Phillip Morris Company, and some find it ironic that a purveyor of tobacco endowed an athletic facility.

Although Diaz noted that “it’s a little odd,” for Cullman’s name be on the facility, he added, “We don’t really evaluate what kind of a business these people are in if they continue to want to support their passion.”

Moreover, the dedication is far from random. Cullman was a famous tennis aficionado, having served as the chairman of the U.S. Open and sponsored the Women’s Tennis Association Tour through his Virginia Slims brand. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1990.

Diaz also noted that, when Cullman was active, there was less stigma associated with smoking due to the relative lack of medical knowledge on cigarettes’ hazardous effects. Regardless of the donor’s industry of choice, the new facility is an invaluable addition to Yale’s athletic profile.

The Tennis Center stands to raise the prospects of an already-excellent Yale Women’s Tennis team. And judging from their performance this past week, the center has already done so.