Excellent Results at ITA New England Regional and Upcoming Panther Challenge Fundraiser

What a fall season it has already been and we are only halfway through! The Panthers are on the rise, working hard, and have achieved some excellent results to this point. It will be key to stay hungry and humble, but always worth celebrating our many successes along the way. We have one more fall tournament for the whole team, and then one more fall event for Noah Lewis who, spoiler alert, qualified for the ITA Cup in Rome, GA to represent our squad at nationals!

The squad helping celebrate Noah's run to the finals!

Upcoming Panther Challenge Fundraiser

Please mark your calendar for our upcoming October 13th to 16th Panther Challenge fundraiser. This four-day fundraising effort directly supports our student-athletes and provides the resources needed to keep our program competing at the highest level. Our aim is to achieve an ambitious goal of $35,000 in total fundraising, and most years we receive the majority of our fundraising during this Panther Challenge. Here’s a quick breakdown of how your contributions will make an immense impact:

• $16k for Southern California spring break experience (flights, meals, hotel, etc.) 

• $5k for PlaySight livestreaming and video capture

• $5k for string and labor 

• $5k for analytics tools

• $4k for Guest strength coach

Henry and Justin looking locked in!

We cannot wait to launch our fundraiser on October 13th! Feel free to reach out directly to us coaches if you have any questions at all!

Two coaches in action with Nikky!

2026 ITA New Regional Results

In our second fall tournament of the year that we again hosted right here in Middlebury, we built on some great successes at the Midd Invite and came through very well through many challenges and high-level opponents. Across the 23 teams that competed in the event, we absolutely established ourselves as a force! Here are some of the highlights:   

B Flight Singles

Nikky Kondamuri putting in work!

We demonstrated a fierce amount of depth in the B flight draw, with 4 out of 5 Panthers earning a spot in the in Round of 16 (the only exit coming due to injury), and 3 of our Panthers moving on to the Quarterfinals, and Nikky making the deepest run to the semifinals! Justin Zhou had a notable win over Williams, Andy Yim over Tufts, Henry Groves over Wesleyan, Anand Sahasrabudhe over Babson, and Nikky Kondamuri over Amherst! Many more solid wins throughout, too many to list off.

Justin ready to attack at the net!

A Flight Singles

Lewi mashing an OH!

In the A singles draw, Thehan won his first-round match before coming up short in a super-tiebreaker in the second round. Freshman Hayden Williams earned a very impressive straight set win over a strong Tufts opponent, before falling in a hard-fought second round match. Freshman Arjun Reiland had a nice run of his own earning straight set victories over strong opponents from Wesleyan an Williams before losing to the eventual tournament champion. And last but not least, Noah Lewis won five straight matches booking himself a trip to the finals and a trip to Rome, GA to compete at the national ITA Cup event in Rome, GA! Noah fought back from 2 match points down in the Round of 32, and earned multiple impressive victories over Tufts, Bowdoin, and MIT during the event! We cannot wait for Noah to represent our group on the national stage in a couple of weeks.

A Flight Doubles

Arjun and Hayden in their flow!

Our team also competed well in the doubles event and even though we fell short from some of our goals, we still had a couple of nice runs and very competitive matchups worth celebrating! The freshmen duo of Hayden Williams and Arjun Reiland earned their spot in the Round of 16 before falling in a tiebreaker to eventual semifinalists from Bates. The senior/sophomore pair of Nikky Kondamuri and Andy Yim battled with ferocious enthusiasm on their way to the quarterfinals before falling in an epicly close 10-8 tiebreaker to the eventual tournament champions.

Full Results

Here are the links for the full list of results and full recap of the ITA Regional.

Upcoming Fall Schedule

Lewi fired up for more!

Our next tournament is the Skidmore Open in Saratoga Springs, NY on Oct 10 and 11. Then we will conclude our Fall with Noah Lewis competing in the ITA Cup in Rome, GA beginning on Thursday, Oct 16th!

Go Midd!

The Middlebury Men’s Tennis Coaching Staff

New Season Underway: Recapping The Middlebury Invitational 2026

It is hard to overstate our enthusiasm and excitement for the new school year. Vermont is a uniquely beautiful place this time of year, and the fact it coincides with our players returning to campus feels even better than a holiday! Our team worked incredibly hard this summer, competing in tournaments around the country and internationally and came back hungry to keep rising! We have two juniors, Sidney Huet and Reif Larsen, who are in Denmark and Italy respectively! We have a young and hungry squad with our current roster comprised of three seniors, two juniors, four sophomores, and four freshmen. Coach Andrew Thomson enters his 10th season back at Middlebury as a coach and Jake Cohen enters his 2nd season at Middlebury.

With less than a week of practice before our Midd Invite 2026, we knew it would be a fun challenge and a great way to test ourselves hosting our first fall tournament. We aimed to quickly integrate our freshmen into our team culture, and this group immediately displayed fantastic camaraderie and support during our first week of training! 

Midd Invite 2026 Results

Although we displayed an expected degree of first match/first tournament jitters, our team gradually rose in competitive grit and level throughout the event allowing our team great success across all the singles and doubles flights! Here is an array of highlights worth shouting out:

Freshmen Success

All four freshmen (Eiji Fujita, Henry Groves, Arjun Reiland, and Hayden Williams) earned their first college victory on Saturday! It is immediate these four will make a huge imprint on our program from both a tennis and energy perspective.

Hayden Willaims (left) and Arjun Reiland (right) bringing some energy and fight!

Eiji serving it up!

Henry locked in!

A Flight Doubles Victory

In the A flight of doubles, we throttled the competition with freshmen Hayden Williams and Arjun Reiland making a deep run to the final winning three straight matches including a come from behind win after going down 0-4 in a proset! The only team to stop the run of our freshmen pair was two of our seniors Thehan Wijemanne and Noah Lewis who earned the A flight crown besting their teammates in the final!

Cool photo of our A flight doubles winners Thehan and Noah!

A Flight Singles Victory

In the A flight of singles, Middlebury again was a dominant force. Sophomore Andy Yim made run to semifinals picking up two come-from-behind victories after dropping first sets before falling to his teammate Thehan Wijemanne. On the other half of the draw, Noah Lewis earned three hard fought wins to earn his spot in the final facing his own doubles partner! Thehan Wijemanne capped his tournament by winning both A flights in a high-level final match against Noah!

Coaches and the winners of A Flight Singles and Doubles

Thehan earning his first ever A Flight Win in Singles!

B Flight Singles Victory

Mirroring our A flight success, we also had three of four semifinalists in the B draw! Sophomore Anand Sahasrabudhe made a deep run to the semifinals earning two solid straight set wins on Saturday. Anand faced off in the semifinals versus his Panther teammate, senior Nikky Kondamuri. Nikky bested two opponents also on Saturday, including a three set win with a 10-poiint tiebreak to decide it. He then used that momentum on Sunday to earn a straight set win over Anand, which pointed him toward a second Panther vs Panther matchup against freshmen Hayden Williams. Hayden has won three straight matches in straight sets and was playing with confidence and fire. After a good battle, Hayden ended up earning the B flight title! 

All smiles post win!

Full Results

Here are the links for the full list of results and full recap of the Midd Invite 2026.

Upcoming Fall Schedule

Next up is our 2026 Fall Regional ITA that we will host right here in Middlebury, September 25-27! After that we will point toward the Skidmore Invitational which will be played in Saratoga Springs, NY on October 10th and 11th.

Go Midd!

The Middlebury Men’s Tennis Coaching Staff