After the jubilant elation following last Tuesday’s NCAA team championship, it is only natural that the members of the women’s tennis team feel a certain letdown at the conclusion of the individual tournaments. For the first time in four years, no Cardinal player competed in yesterday’s singles or doubles championship match.

Not that the team was unsuccessful in the singles and doubles tournaments. Far from it, as junior Theresa Logar made it to the singles semifinals and senior Alice Barnes and junior Anne Yelsey made it to the doubles semifinals. However, with Barnes and Yelsey the top-ranked doubles team nearly all year and both Barnes and fellow senior Amber Liu holding a top-eight seed in the singles draw, the final results did not meet expectations.

“Obviously, it’s really disappointing right now but we’ve had an incredible year,” Yelsey said of Sunday’s doubles loss. “I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s just a little disappointing to go out this way.”

The semifinal matches on Sunday stunned many. Barnes and Yelsey fell in two sets to No. 13 Cristelle Grier and Alexis Prousis of Northwestern, 6-3, 6-2. Grier and Prousis advanced to take home the doubles title the next day.

“I think it’s pretty simple,” Barnes said. “I think we just didn’t play well enough to win. I think they played well and they obviously had a game plan that they were using against us. I struggled on my serve, which is going to be a bit of a problem. It’s obviously disappointing right now but we held the No. 1 ranking pretty much all year so after the disappointment, I’d like to focus on that. They just played well today.”

Logar, who also fell in the semifinals, expressed more optimism than disappointment

“I felt like I did really well to get to the semis,” she said. “I would have liked to have gone further but it was definitely a good tournament, I can’t deny that. I’ve got one more year so hopefully I can do better next year.”

Logar fell to eventual singles champion Suzi Babos of California in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 2-6. Though unseeded to Logar’s 9-16 seed in the tournament, Babos last year earned the ITA National Player to Watch award, given to someone predicted to win a national title during her college career.

Liu and Barnes were both expected to advance deep into the singles tournament. There was even widespread speculation that Liu might become the first-ever player to win three NCAA singles titles (she won in 2003 and 2004).

Both seniors, however, fell on Friday in the round of 16. William & Mary’s Megan Moulton-Levy beat Barnes, 6-3, 6-3. UCLA’s Riza Zalameda defeated Liu, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5, but lost to Babos in the quarterfinals the next day.

Though wanting to end their college careers on high notes, Barnes and Liu remained upbeat about the tournament.

“The way I go out, that doesn’t really matter,” Barnes said. “I’ll just remember my four years here.”

For others on the team, the results exceeded expectations. Sophomore Whitney Deason, unseeded in the tournament, nearly knocked out the No. 1 seed, Miami’s Audra Cohen, in the round of 32. Deason came within two games of the upset, but ultimately faded and lost 6-2, 4-6, 0-6.

“I just kind of ran out of steam,” Deason said. “But I’m really happy with my performance. It’s a nice way to end the season.”

Fellow sophomore Celia Durkin was also an unseeded success story, as she advanced to the singles quarterfinals where she lost to USC’s Lindsey Nelson, 7-5, 0-6, 3-6. Nelson was the runner-up in the singles championship.

As Barnes looked back on her four years at Stanford and what the team has achieved, she described the program as only a seasoned veteran would.

“I think there’s a danger with Stanford tennis that you will take everything for granted and never sit back and enjoy your wins,” she said. “I think now that the season’s over and we’ve done what we wanted to do, we need to sit back and enjoy the fact that we were a part of history. I think that’s something that we should really be proud of. It’s important when you’re with Stanford athletics not just look on to the next thing and the next thing — it’s really important to enjoy the things you achieve.”

The team now gets that chance to rest on its laurels for a while, enjoying the summer off and the White House visit in July that accompanies its national championship.