Last weekend, the women's tennis team excelled at the 2011 Intercollegiate Tennis Association New England Regionals held at Bates College, advancing to the second round in both the singles and doubles brackets.

"I thought we played really well," Nina Levine '12 said of the team's performance. "This was my first year going, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. It was everyone's first year going, and we didn't let everyone's names and rankings intimidate [us] at all. We played to win."

"We all won our first-round matches, which was a very good start for us," Allyson Bernstein '14 added.

"We don't always get a bunch of players in the ITA Tournament, so hopefully next year we'll be able to get some more singles and doubles teams into that tournament."

Levine and Carly Cooke '15, Brandeis' only qualifying doubles team, opened against a duo from Wesleyan University, sophomore Grace Smith and freshman Lauren Jacobs. Taking the match to extra points, the Judges were able to put away their opponents 9-7, advancing to the next round.

In their second match, Levine and Cooke were paired up against Middlebury College freshman Lok-Sze Leung and senior Sally Wilkey. Levine and Cooke put up a solid fight but eventually lost the match 8-4. Leung and Wilkey, meanwhile, advanced to the semifinals, where they lost to the No. 2 seed, which featured Amherst College sophomore Jordan Brewer and senior Laura Danzig.

In the singles bracket, Brandeis was able to advance all three of its players past the initial round. Cooke started off play with a match against Bowdoin College freshman Emma Chow. After pulling out a close 7-5 win in the first set, Cooke was able to pull away from Chow in the second set, taking it by a score of 6-1. However, she could not carry this momentum over into the next round, losing against Brewer, the No. 1 seed, by margins of 6-3, 6-1.

Bernstein also participated in singles play and matched up against Wellesley College freshman Melissa Clark. Bernstein was able to easily advance, posting 6-2 victories in both sets.

"I just went out there and started off being very consistent, hitting the ball deep," Bernstein said of the match.

"And that worked very well because it was very windy. Then they moved that match over to the high school, and the wind came up, and the ball started carrying a lot more. I started hitting the ball deep, and she started missing, so I just stuck to that game plan since it was working."

Bernstein was then knocked out in the next round by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore Lauren Quisenberry 6-2, 6-2.

Roberta Bergstein '14 won her opening match against Nichols College freshman Lindsay Benoit, 7-6(4), 5-7 and 7-6(4) but then fell to Williams College sophomore Kathleen Elkins 6-3, 6-0.

Overall, Bernstein was optimistic that the team's performance would allow for a greater representation of Judges at the ITA Tournament in the future and set the tone for the rest of the season.

"Gaining acceptance into the ITA Tournament depends on seating and rankings as a team," she said. "Williams and Amherst are very high up, and they go to the NCAA tournament every year, so they have five or six players in the singles draw, while we only had three in this year."

"Hopefully, [the wins] are just the start to our season, and we'll win more matches," she added.

[The team] is a little more offensive and has a strong second serve. We just need to be offensive and play our game when we go out there. … We've got to fight hard."

The women's tennis squad next plays this weekend at the Middlebury Doubles Tournament. The men's squad will play at the Wallach Invitational at Bates this weekend as well.