CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Senior
Lauren Long of the Washington and Lee women's tennis team posted a pair of wins to open the 2026 NCAA Division III Singles Championship to advance to the national quarterfinals.
FIRST ROUND – LONG def. VICTORIA WANG (NYU), 7-6 (4), 7-5
In Long's first-round match against Wang, players exchanged holds of serve across the first five games, leaving Wang with a 3-2 lead. Both of Long's service holds in the early going came on deuce points. Wang then looked to distance herself in the first set with a break of Long's serve, but Long responded with a break of her own on four straight points.
Long then held serve again before winning another deuce point on Wang's serve to flip into the lead, 5-4. Wang kept up her fight with a double-flip of her own to jump in front, 6-5, but Long went on to hold serve to force the first set into a tiebreak. Long then raced out to a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak, which included winning all three return points. Wang tried to rally, as she won the next three points, but Long closed out the set on the next point.
Wang had the upper hand to begin the second set, breaking Long's serve twice to run up a 5-2 lead. Long locked in after that though and won five consecutive games to win the match. Throughout the match, Long won points when it mattered most, claiming five of the six deuce points, including 3-of-4 in the first set.
SECOND ROUND – LONG def. AGNES GUGGENHEIM (WESLEYAN [CONN.]), 7-5, 6-4
Out of the 12 games played in the first set, serve was held just three times, but Long claimed two of the service holds to gain an edge. In a constant back-and-forth, Guggenheim was serving for the first set when Long broke her serve, followed by a service hold on deuce point and another break on deuce point to take the opening set.
Breaks of serve continued for the first three games of the second set, with Guggenheim breaking Long's serve twice on deuce points. Guggenheim then got a rare hold of serve to take a 3-1 lead, before both players went on to hold serve for the next three games. With Guggenheim up 4-3 and serving, Long won the final three points of the eighth game to break the Cardinal's serve, before holding her own serve and getting one final break of Guggenheim to end the match.
Guggenheim had the edge for the match in deuce points, winning 5-of-8 in the match, but she also struggled landing her serve, particularly in the first set. She surrendered a game to Long with four double faults in a single game, before double-faulting on game point again to give Long a 4-2 lead at the time.
LAUREN LONG NOTES:
With her win in the first round over Wang, Long secured ITA/NCAA Singles All-America laurels for a fourth consecutive season. She is the first player for the program to earn All-America honors in singles in four straight seasons since Sonja Meighan '15. She is also the third player in program history to be a four-time All-American in singles, joining Meighan and Lindsay Hagerman '05.
Long will make the first appearance in the national singles quarterfinals for the W&L women's tennis program since Brooke Donnelly '17 did so in 2017.
Long will officially be recognized as an All-American for this season when the ITA announces the complete list of All-America players in June.
UP NEXT:
Long will be back on the courts on Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. in the NCAA Division III Singles Quarterfinals, where she will take on Babson first-year and 10th-ranked Alessandra Sikharulidze.
Nestled in the mountains of Virginia, Washington and Lee University is a proud member of NCAA Division III and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Founded in 1749, W&L is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and a top-ranked liberal arts university. With over 500 student-athletes in 24 varsity sports, the Generals have celebrated over 265 conference championships. Learn more about the Blue and White by visiting www.generalssports.com or on social media at @WLUGenerals.
