After an incredibly hot start and a 9-0 run to begin our year, our team is now even more battle-tested after a few more weeks of play! Two of our losses came from dropping hard fought matches to teams ranked #1 and #2 in the nation, and a handful of setbacks allowed us to reflect and tweak in areas where we needed to grow! Our past two matches from this past weekend demonstrated incredible resilience where our team made a particularly impressive comeback after falling behind 3-0 to Amherst and finishing the match reeling off four three set wins in a row to clinch a 4-3 decision followed by another road win at Hamilton the next day! We look forward to using these lessons learned and hitting our stride as we have only one weekend of home matches followed by postseason play!
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| Amazing crew! |
Alumni Tennis Saturday Morning of Alumni Weekend
We also want to highlight and remind our alumni that our alumni weekend matches will take place on April 27-28. We cannot wait to see many of you there! The plan for our alumni hit is to play on Saturday from 930-11am (outdoors weather permitting or in Nelson Arena as needed). Please contact athomson@middlebury.edu with any questions if you will be on campus that weekend!
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| Midd! |
CMS (Midd lost 5-2)
For our final spring break match, we faced off against the top ranked team in the nation. We lost a brutally close doubles point and had a point to clinch it. After losing some team momentum after the doubles and falling behind early in the singles play, we did fight back hard and were able to earn two matches in third set ten-point tiebreakers at #2 singles (Lewis) and #6 singles (Sahasrabudhe). This tough test was a fun experience regardless of result, and was a first step toward recognizing areas we needed to address on the practice courts.
Williams (Midd lost 6-1)
In this home match vs Williams, we again dropped a very hard-fought doubles point that came down to a tiebreaker at # 2 doubles. Credit to the other team for sneaking past us, we again were unable to halt momentum heading into singles play. This is an area we emphasized and knew we would be more prepared for in the future! In singles play, we did not have our best day across the board, but Reif Larsen was a great highlight earning a wonderful straight set win at #4 singles!
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| Reif getting some extension! |
Trinity CT (Midd wins 6-`1)
Hungry to get back in the win column, we bounced back in style on the road where we competed will in windy day conditions at Trinity (CT). The doubles was played at a high level and coming through on the double point allowed us to have a turn and carrying momentum into singles, which we were able to thrive on! We won four straight set singles wins and one more in a ten-point tiebreaker build some needed confidence and put a firm grip on a conference win!
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| Anand hunting down a slice backhand! |
Tufts (Midd lost 7-0)
Gearing up for a very tough test against the #2 ranked team in the country, we came out strongly on the doubles court and went up breaks at #2 and #3 doubles. Unfortunately, we could not hang on to our leads and dropped the doubles point. Again facing momentum heading the wrong direction, credit to Tufts for playing some very high-level singles early across the board and it made our job tough to hang in. Although we were unable to secure back the momentum, our team atmosphere and composure began to improve, and we knew this setback would only serve to make us more hungry and more willing to dig even deeper in our next matches.
Amherst (Midd wins 4-3)
In our first 4-3 decision of the year, it was an epic comeback for the ages! After dropping the doubles point and four out of 6 singles sets, we had little margin for error. That being said, our group demonstrated incredible belief and resilience in themselves and each other! We had been down in a couple of recent matches, and we knew only playing free and bringing big energy and passion would give us a shot to completing the comeback. The comeback party got started by Thehan Wijemanne at #3 singles who earned a 6-2 win in his third set, who was then quickly followed by three of his teammates. Anand Sahasrabudhe won at #6 singles next also 6-2 in the third followed by Hugh Hentschel at #5 singles who won 6-1 in the third. The match then came down to the final court at #1 singles, where Julian Wu played with an impressive sense of calm composure and through some very high-level points found his way to clinch the team match 6-2 in his third set! Shout out to all 12 of our players from bringing incredible intensity and passion in this one!
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| Noah Lewis lining up a backhand. |
Hamilton (Midd wins 7-0)
Not slowing our team momentum following a big win the day before, our Panthers pounced again after moving indoors for an away match at Hamilton. We secured the doubles point and fun to have inserted Nathan Hernandez who paired with Thehan Wijemanne to win at #1 doubles and Nikky Kondamuri who paired with Julian Wu at #3 doubles! We never looked back, and ended up clinching the match at #5 singles with a win from Andy Yim!
Upcoming Schedule (12pm EST matches both April 27 and 28)
Go Midd!
- Middlebury Tennis Coaching Staff
