CMS Women's Tennis Guts Out 5-3 Win Over Middlebury to Advance to NCAA Semifinals

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - The top-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team came back from a 2-1 deficit after doubles to earn a 5-3 win over Middlebury in the NCAA Division III Quarterfinals on Monday at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center.

With the win, CMS improves to 25-1 on the season and will advance to face Wesleyan (Conn.), which earned a 5-4 win over Emory in its quarterfinal. The winner of that one will move on to the national championship match on Thursday, when the Athenas hope to try for their third straight NCAA title. 

Lindsay Eisenman provided the clinch for CMS with a three-set win at No. 1 singles, taking it 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to send the Athenas on to the semifinals. The win did not come easy, as Middlebury took a 2-1 lead after doubles. Alisha Chulani and Nikolina Batoshvili earned an 8-4 win at No. 1 doubles for the first point of the match, but the Panthers took wins at No. 2 and No. 3 to gain some momentum heading into singles. 

Middlebury got the early upper hand in singles as well, but Eisenman helped turn the momentum by coming back from an 0-3 deficit to win her first set 6-4. Audrey Yoon also took control of her match after trailing 3-2 early in the first, winning the last 10 games in a row for a 6-3, 6-0 win to tie the score 2-2. 

Chulani also earned a straight-set singles win, taking her match 6-4, 6-2, and Jade Haller put CMS ahead 4-3 with a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 4 singles. That left two matches going to three sets, with CMS needing to win one, as Sahana Raman forced a third against Eisenman, while Sena Selby took the second set for the Athenas at No. 4 singles 6-4, after falling in a tiebreaker in the first set to earn a split. 

Eisenman was able to take control early in the second set with a big break on a deuce point to go ahead 3-1, before holding serve to make it 4-1. After Raman held, Eisenman took the final two games for the clinch. 

CMS will be facing Wesleyan for the first time since the 2022 NCAA Semifinals, which the Athenas won 5-0. The Cardinals defeated CMS 5-4 in the 2019 national championship match, which is the only NCAA Tournament loss that the Athenas have suffered in the last five seasons, after winning national titles in 2018, 2022, and 2023 and having the 2020 and 2021 tournaments interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. CMS is now 22-1 in the NCAAs since 2018.