What a phenomenal October it was for our young and tenacious
group of Panther men! All of the Panthers got to complete across three events
and demonstrated our hunger for exploring our potential. As the coaching staff
must take a step back during the winter season, we remain impressed by the
tenacity with which our group has been attacking their on-court work seeking to
push their games to the next level. We have an incredible amount of confidence
in our senior captains Weston Brach, Aleks Samets, and Alex Vanezis who
represent themselves as some of the most organized, academically high achieving
trios, and team-first leaders. It is an honor to have watched these three grow
and truly shine in their captains role thus far this season and we expect they
will help guide our group so that we come back even stronger than we are now in
February!
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| Brach '20 and Hilty '21 teaming up for some Midd doubles on a beautiful Fall day! |
Before we go any further, let’s recap some of the highlights
from last month followed by our final freshman spotlight for Aidan Harris…
Wesleyan Invitational
Our third Fall event included every player on our team, with
the exception of Stan Morris ’22 (and our two Panthers who are studying abroad)
who was representing the Panthers at the ITA Oracle Cup in Rome, GA the same
weekend. It was a great tournament where all ten of our Panthers competed
against players from the strongest DIII teams in the northeast, and helped us
to continue our growth and upward trajectory.
The biggest highlight of the event was a run to the finals
of the A flight draw by senior captain Alex Vanezis ’20 who fought through some
incredibly competitive early round battles where he had to come from behind
twice. Next, he won an incredibly hard fought match against our own Robby Ward
’22 who had beaten the #2 seed in the A flight from Amherst the day before.
Unfortunately, Robby pushed Alex to the brink so much so that he did not quite
have enough gas to push the finals match across the finish line dropping a hard
fought three set battle. We know however, that continuing to push ourselves is
what will serve us best come spring time!
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| Vanezis '20 (left) and Guo '21 (right) hanging out shoulder to shoulder between matches. |
Other highlights from the tournament included a run to the B
flight semifinals by Andre Xiao ’21, and wins from Andrew Mueller ’23, David
Vilys’ 22, and the doubles tream of Zach Hilty ’22 and David Vilys ’22.
Although we did not come away with overall as strong of results as we would
have liked, we identified some key areas that we more clearly emphasized over
the next week of training leading up to our final fall event.
A complete description of tournament results can be found by
clicking here.
ITA Oracle Cup
Demonstrating his massive potential as a dominant force in
DIII tennis, Stan Morris ’22 competed in a draw consisting of 16 of the top
DIII players in the nation who won or made it to the finals of their respective
regional ITA tournaments. Needless to say, there are no easy matches at such an
event. Despite the challenging opponents, Stan brought his game to Rome in full
force! He won his first round match in straight sets over an opponent from RPI,
securing his future status as an All-American! Not satisfied, Stan competed
with impressive grit and passion clinching a birth into the semifinal round
with a running forehand pass to break for a 6-4 in the third set victory over a
Case Western opponent who had not lost a match all year to that point. Next
coming up against a highly touted player from CMS, Stan was not done and mashed
the ball from every part of the court to secure a straight set victory and a
place in the finals. Amazingly, his opponent was the same opponent he lost to
in the ITA regional final (and the player who won the same national event last
year). Though not coming out with a win, Stan pushed his opponent to the brink
losing the first set in a tiebreaker, winning the second set, but unable to grasp
the third and final set. We could not be more proud of Stan! The result is
amazing, but we are most impressed by his hard work and the resulting
improvement that led to his high-level play.
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| Morris '22 lining up a ball to SMASH at the ITA Oracle Cup! |
A full recap of Stan’s run can be seen by clicking here.
Bryant Invitational
Another key event for the Panthers, we brought our entire
team to compete in a mini-dual invitational format against Division I’s Bryant
University. As Andrew Mueller ’23 was out with a minor injury we had ten
Panther beasts competing through the weekend. In doubles and singles play
combined, there were many incredible matches. The Panthers ended up winning 2
more matches than we lost over the course of the two-day event across 34 total
matches.
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| Traveling in style on a giant bus! Living large! |
One of the biggest highlights for the Panthers was our improved
doubles play! We even mixed up our doubles teams to test some new pairings on
Sunday, and our men still performed. Leading the charge on this front, Alex
Vanezis ’20, Adam Guo ‘21, Andre Xiao ‘21, and Aidan Harris ‘23 all went 3-0
over the weekend. In singles play, Aleks Samets ’20, Zach Hilty ’22, and David
Vilys ’22 each won both of their singles matches against DI competition!
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| Morris '22 (left) and Ward '23 (right) talking doubles strategy with AT! |
There were many more great performances, and a full recap of
the results from the Bryant Invitations can be found here.
Freshman Spotlight: Get To Know Aidan Harris
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| Harris '23 (center) with Mueller '23 (left) and Xiao '21 (right). |
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Siblings: Younger brother Ian and younger sister Emelyn
Favorite Food: Roasted Red Pepper Pasta (best version made by Mom!)
Favorite Hobby Outside of Tennis: Watching Football
Something My Teammates Do Not Know About Yet: Played the saxophone freshmen year
of high school
Pets: Lab named Tizzy and Shorkie Quinney
Pets: Lab named Tizzy and Shorkie Quinney
Favorite Pro Tennis Player: Roger Federer
Best Part About Being in Vermont: Excited for the skiing
Favorite Thing About Middlebury College So Far: Being on the team and hanging with our
group!
Shout Out To A Teammate(s): Shout out to Alex Vanezis for
being a great encouraging doubles partner, bringing a lot of energy, support,
and chemistry!
As always, thanks for all the love and support from you and the rest of our Middlebury Tennis Family. Looking forward to seeing and hearing from many of you soon!
Go Midd!
Coach Thomson and Coach Hansen
Go Midd!
Coach Thomson and Coach Hansen
