ORLANDO, Fla. - Haverford College women's tennis sophomore Abbey Russano competed on the first day of the NCAA Individual Championships at the USTA National Campus in Orlando on Friday, falling to Sabrina Tang of Grinnell, the nation's 12th-ranked individual player, in the Round of 32. Russano, the first Haverford player to earn inclusion into the national tournament since Amanda Figland in 1988, was defeated 6-4, 6-2 in the opening round of the tournament. 

Russano, who earned first-team All-Conference designation in singles and was ranked No. 21 in the Atlantic South, won 80 percent of her break points for the match, and sprinted out to an early lead on Tang, Grinnell's all-time leader in single season wins. Russano tallied three consecutive games in those early goings, and eventually went ahead 4-3 in the first frame with much of the momentum on her side. Tang responded with three straight game wins of her own, rallying late in the final game, fending off game point, to take the 6-4 win. 

The Bridgewater, N.J. product got into a large early hole in the second set, with Tang out to a comfortable 5-0 lead. Undaunted, Russano rattled off two straight game wins before Tang was able to secure the 6-2 win to advance to the second round of the tournament and a matchup against eight-seeded Olivia Soffer of Babson. 

As just a sophomore, Russano will look to make a mark during her junior campaign as the Fords attempt to qualify for the NCAA Championships as a team after a solid 2022 campaign that saw the program hold a sustained national ranking and test fellow conference stalwarts Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins.