May 20, 2015
Vanderbilt athletic officials announced today that a public celebration of the Commodores’ NCAA women’s tennis championship is being planned for early fall due to the uniqueness of format of the NCAA Tennis Championships.
Unlike most other sports, where the entire team returns to campus after winning the team championship, the sport of tennis continues its championships with singles and doubles competition that will go on for over a week.
Four members of Vanderbilt’s championship team – Sydney Campbell, Astra Sharma, Courtney Colton and Ashleigh Antal – are remaining in Waco to compete for NCAA singles and doubles honors along with head coach Geoff Macdonald and associate head coach Aleke Tsoubanos.
As the singles and doubles competitions continue, team members not competing or those that may be eliminated in early rounds plan to go home immediately since school is out for the summer. Those departures mean that getting the entire team or even a majority of the team together in the immediate future is not practical.
“Our tennis team understands the uniqueness of their sport’s format precludes an immediate celebration. We all look forward to congratulating the team and celebrating this outstanding accomplishment at a time when everyone can be together,” said Steve Walsh, senior associate director of athletics.
Walsh said every effort will be made at the fall event to have the entire team in attendance, including the two graduating seniors. A date, time and place for the celebration will be announced later.
