It has been a phenomenally beautiful fall season so far in Middlebury, and our tennis play is on a steady rise upward through our first two fall tournaments. The coaches have really enjoyed seeing our team take shape at the beginning stages of the year, and we can already sense a beautiful theme about this year’s squad: a hunger and passion to get better! Always enjoyable to collaborate with this group and fired up to keep improving as we go. Here are a few highlights from both events, as well as our upcoming fall schedule.
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| ITA Singles Finalist Neel Epstein pictured with Coach AT  |
Middlebury Invitational
With beautifully warm and dry weather, it was a perfect weekend to host our Middlebury Invitational! Against some tough DIII competition out of the gate, we demonstrated a lot of depth and success across the board. In A flight single play, both Neel Epstein and Noah Laber made deep runs to the semifinals, Noah Lewis booked a trip to the quarterfinals, and Hugh Hentschel earned two wins in consolation play! In the B flight, both Thehan Wijemanne and Nikky Kondamuri had strong showings going to the semifinals and finals respectively, both falling to the same opponent. In the C flight, Sidney Huet earned his first collegiate singles wins reaching the semifinals, with fellow freshmen Reif Larsen winning the C flight draw across 4 solid wins (also his first collegiate wins)! In doubles, our squad was paced by Noah Laber and Hugh Hentschel who paired to win the A flight doubles crown! Neel Epstein and Thehan Wijemanne made the semifinals as well. More detailed results can be found by checking out the tournament box scores here.
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| Reif Larsen won the C Flight Singles, let's go! |
New England ITA Regional
Building off a solid start at the Midd Invite, the Panthers traveled to Boston for the New England ITA Regional event. Nothing like a road trip with the boys! The team performed exceptionally well as a whole with everyone contributing. On the first day, we earned four doubles wins to only one loss, placing 3 of our doubles teams into the round of 16 (Hentschel/Epstein, Wijemanne/Laber, and Kondamuri/Lewis). Perhaps even more impressively, we won 9 of 10 singles matches despite the incredibly competitive draw, earning 4 of our singles players spots in the Rd of 16, including Nikky Kondamuri and Noah Lewis both earning wins over seeded players. On Day 2, much of the fun continued with two of our three doubles teams earned spots into the quarterfinals (Hentschel/Epstein, Wijemanne/Laber) before losing tight matches in that round. Noah Laber also earned a hard-fought win to reach the quarterfinals before losing a war of a three-set match to end his run. Leading the charge for the Panthers, Neel Epstein won two three-set thrillers on Day 2, and found his way through another epic three-set battle on Day 3 to punch his ticket to the finals (and earning himself a spot at the ITA National Event called the ITA Cup in Rome, GA). After leaving it all on the line across the past three matches, Neel came up short in the finals but will continue his run next week in Georgia! Special shout out to Thehan Wijemanne, Sidney Huet, and Reif Larsen who all competed well in B singles draw and even some additional exhibition matches to maximize our ITA experience. More detailed results can be found by checking out the tournament box scores here.
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| Nikky Kondamuri competing and rising! |
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| Hugh Hentschel digging out a slice and balling! |
Upcoming Tournaments
- Oct 10-13: Neel will compete at the ITA Cup in Rome, GA
- Oct 26-27: Boston University Hidden Dual
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| Neel ready to return serve! |
We can’t wait for more fun ahead and thanks so much for all of the wonderful support felt from near and far!
- The Middlebury Men’s Tennis Coaches
