WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
ORLANDO, Fla. — Kenyon College first-year Eleni Lazaridou’s impressive run through the NCAA Division III Women’s Tennis Singles Championship Tournament came to a halt Sunday at the USTA National Campus, as she dropped her semifinal match 6-2, 6-1 to Olivia Soffer of Babson College.
Lazaridou, who was the No. 4 seed in the 32-player field, won two matches Friday and then won her quarterfinal match Saturday, but Soffer, the top-seeded player in the field, kept Lazaridou from gaining a spot in Monday’s final match.
With her showing on the national stage, Lazaridou became the first member of the Kenyon women’s tennis program to reach the NCAA Singles Championship semifinal round since Caryn Cuthbert got to the final in the 1997-98 academic year.
The loss brings an end to Lazaridou’s rookie year with a remarkable 25-4 singles record. That win total will go down in the books as tied for the third-best single-season mark in program history.
