Tuesday's women's tennis match between host Chestnut Hill College and regional powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas College came down to the wire as the Spartans eked out a 4-3 win to hand the Griffins their first loss of the season.

The Griffins fall to 2-1 on the season while the Spartans jump out to a 1-0 start to their 2023-24 campaign.

STAC took two of the three doubles contests to open the match and grab an early 1-0 lead.  Chestnut Hill's lone doubles win came as Alison Isaac and Nele Haag defeated Jemina Parkinson and Elita Silins 7-5.  Isaac and Haag improve to 3-0 as a doubles team on the season.

Romi Meirovich tied the match at 1-1 with a straight set win over Samanta Villegas Robles at #3 singles 6-2, 6-1.  The Spartans followed with a win at #4 singles before Elena Arenas Guisasola tied the match back up at 2-2 with a with a 6-2, 6-0 win at #6 singles.  STAC pulled out a win at #1 singles to retake the lead at 3-2, leaving the outcome of the match to the final to players,  Annika Wise at #5 singles and Isaac at #2 singles.

Wise was cruising in her #5 singles match against Sonia Tandelova, scoring a 6-0 win I the opening set before Tandelova fought back to even the match with a 7-5 win in the second set.  The third set belonged to wise who jumped out to a 4-1 lead before finishing off the set 6-3, breaking Tandelova three times in that final to even the match at 3-3 with a 6-0, 5-7, 6-3 win.

Isaac also won the first set of her match against Viktoriia Pavlovets at #2 singles, 6-4.  Pavlovets rebounded to take the second set 6-2 and force a decisive third set.  Isaac was winning in the third set but again Pavlovets battled back.  The two players fought to a 6-6 score in the set, forcing a tiebreaker to determine the winner.  Isaac and Pavlovets exchanged points early int the tiebreaker before Pavlovets started to pull ahead and clinched the contest 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) with the seventh point of the tiebreak round, making the final score of the match 4-3 in favor of the Spartans.

The Chestnut Hill Women's Tennis team will have four members of their squad compete at the ITA East Regional Championship starting on September 15 and running through the weekend.  The ITA competition is being held in Flushing, Queens, New York.