The 2025 Journey Getting Ready to Take Off

With our first practices around the corner, we are fired up and building our enthusiasm for our spring season ahead. Our first dual matches begin with a doubleheader on March 1st in Middlebury! Lots of work to build and prepare, but excited for what is to come! We begin the year ranked #5 in the ITA pre-season national poll, and cannot wait see where we can go this year. Our squad is a beautiful combination of experience, youth, and a willingness to improve and grow. In this blog post we spotlight our freshmen class, share our Spring 2025 dual match schedule, and share our collective excitement for what is ahead!

Can't wait to circle it up for our dual matches, first ones on March 1st!

We have been working incredibly hard and it is always a special experience to see our veteran players demonstrate their leadership and growth as they continue to put in work during our developmental season. Each of our Panthers has been locking in to aspects of their game that will help them to become stronger and more well-balanced team members. Another key shout out the coaching staff wants highlight is that our players really stepped up during our community service project in December where we partnered with the HOPE foundation to provide holiday gifts to families in need in Addison County. Our players had a blast and gathered a huge number of toys and needed items this holiday season!

Freshmen Spotlights 

Sidney Huet, representing the only one-handed backhand to our squad this year!

Sidney Huet:

• Hometown: Gstaad, Switzerland
• Siblings: Three younger sisters (Nora, Sveva, and Giulia)
• Favorite Food: Sushi
• Favorite Hobby Outside of Tennis: Skiing
• Pets: 1 Dog (Bo)
• Favorite Pro Tennis Player: Roger Federer and Carlos Alcaraz
• Best Part About Being in Vermont: Living the American life
• Favorite Thing About Middlebury College So Far: Cohesive team culture within the tennis team and school

Reif, connecting on a backhand at the Middlebury Invite.

Reif Larsen:

• Hometown: Portland, Oregon 
• Siblings: Younger sister (Sabrina)
• Favorite Food: Sushi
• Favorite Hobby Outside of Tennis: Skiing.
• Pets: 2 Cats (Champs and Dune)
• Favorite Pro Tennis Player: Novak Djokovic
• Best Part About Being in Vermont: The fall-season trees
• Favorite Thing About Middlebury College So Far: The team and skiing culture.

2025 Spring Schedule 

Check out our finalized 2025 Spring Schedule below. We loaded up a challenging schedule to really test ourselves and provide as many opportunities as possible to grow and build our resilience and strength during the phases of the season. We will play some of the toughest competition in DIII, as well as some challenging matches against non-DIII opponents. See our schedule graphic below, and you can also click here to always have the latest updates on our spring schedule.

Alumni Match Weekend and Senior Celebration (April 26th and 27th)

Alumni match weekend will take place April 26-27, when we host Wesleyan on Saturday and Trinity(CT) on Sunday. We will plan to host a get together with both our seniors, team members, families, and alumni this weekend! Please mark your calendars and we will send some more details as it gets closer.

Thanks for reading along and stay tuned for more updates! Go Midd!

- The Middlebury Men’s Tennis Coaching Staff

Panthers Finish Fall 2024 Season in Style

The fall season always seems to fly by, and this year particularly so with incredible weather and excellent competition to begin our team’s journey. Our group is a hard-working bunch and one that is incredibly fun to work with and be around because of their high expectations and goals for themselves individually and collectively. One key for our team will be to stay present and to enjoy the process of putting in the hard work. We are thrilled as coaches knowing that our team will keep striving to improve now that we have reached our development season. However, let’s first recap our final fall events.    

ITA Cup (Neel Epstein)

It is always a special opportunity when one of our Panthers earns the honor of representing our team at the ITA Cup by making a run at our ITA New England regional event. Neel traveled to Rome, GA with Coach Tristan. Battling some of the best competition in the nation, Neel played three wars each day. He dropped a hard-fought straight set match in the opening round, then bounced back to win his next match 7-5 in the third set, and competed through until the very end of another epic match losing 4-6 in the third in his final bout. Most importantly, Neel left it all on the courts and honed his competitive fire which will serve both Neel and our squad well as we keep building and rising. Full scores and details of Neel’s run are captured here.

Boston University and Bryant University Hidden Dual Tournament

The final stop for our fall tournament season was in Boston. It was a great opportunity to test ourselves on the road against two Div. I programs and to compete against a pool of players that we do not typically play against. Our group rose to the challenge and then some in this event. The format was unique and fun where each of the schools created two mini-teams of four players, and then played 2 doubles matches and 4 singles matches per round across four rounds. In total for both days of competition, we went 6-2 in doubles play and 11-5 in singles play. Credit to our group for demonstrating both focus and hunger to use each and every competitive opportunity to our advantage. What a fantastic way to put a punctuation mark on our October and to provide ourselves with clear feedback about how we can keep growing our skills on the court heading into our development season. More details and results can be found here.

New Outdoor Courts Mostly Finished

We have been training at our new 12-court outdoor facility for about 3-weeks. More finishing touches are on the way, but we are beyond excited about how things have turned out so far! You can read a brief overview about our new facility here.

Thank You (Panther Challenge) and Alumni Spotlight

We want to extend another huge thank you to so many who contributed to our Proud to Be A Panther Challenge fundraiser. Everyone’s support means so much to us and we are fortunate to be a part of a program with such great history, alumni, family, and friends. Without doubt, the magic of Midd tennis is derived from so many who have invested their hearts and souls in our program and we hope to continue to build on our wonderful foundation.  

Last but not least, just in case you did not already see it on social media check our Will Oberrender '13 who was highlighted in a Midd Athletics almuni spotlight. Click here to check it out!