The Emory University women's tennis team swept the ITA South Regional singles and doubles championships following a dominant weekend in Sewanee, TN.
Freshman Eliza McPherron captured the singles crown as she defeated North Carolina Wesleyan's Kristal Dule in straight sets 7-5, 6-2 in Sunday's championship match. McPherron is the 19th consecutive Emory player to win the regional title and the sixth first-year Eagle to do so during the streak.
McPherron went 6-0 as she made her way through the singles draw, defeating Methodist's Megan Kidd (6-3, 6-0), Piedmont's Imani Vincent (6-1, 6-0), Sewanee's Natalia Nassar (6-2, 7-5), junior Alexa Goetz (6-4, 4-6, 7-5), sophomore Ana Cristina Perez (2-6, 6-3, 6-1) and Dule on her path to the title.
Emory as a team went a perfect 11-0 in singles during the first round on Friday and saw nine of the 11 players entered in the field reach the round of 16.
Senior Christina Watson advanced to the semifinals before bowing out to Dule 7-6 (1), 6-4 and on the other side of the bracket, McPherron and Perez made it to the final four before McPherron bested her in their three set match.
For doubles, Goetz and sophomore Xuanjin Li became the 14th consecutive Emory tandem to claim the South Regional championship, topping teammates Emma Cartledge and Jessica Fatemi, 6-3, 7-5, in the all-Emory championship match on Sunday.
The Goetz and Li pairing went 5-0 as the top seed in the five-round, 31-team draw to win the title, defeating Birmingham-Southern's Rushing/Prater (withdraw), Sewanee's Reid/Towning (8-0), Sewanee's Smith/Nowak (8-5) in the first three rounds before beating teammates Perez/Lauren Yoon (6-2, 6-3) in the semifinals.
The Eagles had five doubles teams in the competition with all five duos reaching the round of eight. On the bottom half of the draw, Fatemi and Cartledge defeated Centre's Trinh/Lanceaster (8-1) and Sewanee's Livingston/Caldwell (8-1) prior to knocking out the two-seed team of Watson and McPherron in the quarterfinals, 8-4. Fatemi and Cartledge advanced to the finals following a three-set triumph against Sewanee's Despriet/Hall, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.
Emory's trio of McPherron, Goetz and Li as well as Cartledge and Fatemi have now qualified for the ITA Cup by virtue of their regional finals apperances and will compete against the other regional finalists the weekend of October 14-17 in Rome, GA.