SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – The Union College women's tennis team dropped its first match of 2024-25 on Sunday morning, falling to ITA #34 New York University by a 6-1 score at Sportime Schenectady.
 
The Violets started the day by taking all three doubles matches to garner the opening point. Junior Chara Meidani and sophomore Luisa Arizpe-Sierra came the closest to a win at the top flight, using a pair of breaks to sit at 4-4 against Isabella Hartman and Victoria Wang before the NYU pair held to take a 5-4 lead and then won a deuce point on Union's serve to complete the win.
 
Union battled hard in singles play, going up against an NYU side that boasts three players ranked in the top-40 nationally and three of the top-nine in the region by the ITA.
 
Arizpe-Sierra came away with the lone victory of the day for the home team, battling Kendall Kamerschen in fifth-singles play. She started the match with a 6-4 first-set win after getting a crucial break at 5-4 to clinch the set, before Kamerschen came back to take the second, 6-2. The Union sophomore recorded four straight points in the breaker to turn a 2-2 tie into a 6-2 advantage, and then captured the final four points to finish off a 10-3 win.
 
At second singles, Meidani came back from a 6-1 first set to force a super tiebreaker against 36th-ranked Hartman, battling from 4-5 down in the second set to break serve twice and win the final three games. She was unable to complete the comeback, however, falling just short in a supertiebreaker, 10-8.
 
Seventh-ranked Jimena Menendez defeated junior Skylar Semon, 6-0, 6-3, at the top flight, while ninth-ranked Wang held off first-year Samantha Jacobs in third-singles action, 6-1, 6-4. First-year Calista Finkelstein also fought hard in her sixth-singles match versus Siona Vallabhaneni, losing by a 6-3, 6-4 margin.
 
The Garnet Chargers will return to action on Saturday with another non-conference matchup at the University of Rochester beginning at 10 a.m.