Happy New Year 2019: Middlebury Tennis Edition

Happy 2019 to our Middlebury Tennis family! First, we want to wish everyone a Happy New Year filled with excitement and fun. We also imagine that everyone is starting to get that warm and fuzzy feeling only associated with knowing that the spring tennis season is just around the corner! As a coaching staff, we feel incredibly thankful to be able to work with our current group of fourteen players and are thrilled with the journey that lies ahead. We also want to announce a resounding welcome back to Alex Vanezis, who has returned from a semester abroad in Japan!

Vanezis '20 pictured on the left with
fellow Juniors  Brach '20 and Samets '20

As our players returned to campus after the winter holiday, there was a palpable feeling of enthusiasm as the official start to our spring season is about 6 weeks away. Since the end of the fall season, the Panthers have made sure to set specific training goals for themselves that they are working to achieve to be fully prepared for Spring. Our captains, Cole Sutton, Peter Martin, Lubomir Cuba, and Noah Farrell will be leading the charge for us this season and we will be leaning heavily on their experience this year. The coaching staff is also incredibly appreciative for the leadership already on display from the juniors, sophomores, and freshman as well. Very fun when our group is motivated from top to bottom!

Our Senior Panthers are a very tight knit
group leading the way for us this year!

Echoing our excitement for this season, the ever popular DIII tennis blog is beginning to release season previews of many DIII teams. Although the season preview for Middlebury has yet to be posted, it is fun to read about the potential lineups and schedules of many of our competitors: http://www.division3tennis.com/blog/. As a reminder, the coaching staff also would like to clarify that we are not the authors of the blog, but do appreciate their work giving DIII tennis more publicity!

2019 Schedule

Most importantly, we also wanted to share with you our finalized schedule for the spring (http://athletics.middlebury.edu/sports/mten/2018-19/schedule). As we did last year, we have a wonderful schedule planned with many matches that will allow us to test ourselves against some of the toughest competition in DIII, as well as some challenging matches against DI and DII programs.

As always, our match schedule really starts to heat up on our spring break trip when we will be returning to Claremont, CA again.

Fundraising: We are currently behind in our annual fundraising efforts for this critical and important trip. Here is the link for anyone who is interested in donating to support our journey: http://sites.middlebury.edu/middgoal/2015/08/27/mens-tennis-training-trip-2/

Regular Season Schedule Highlights:

3/16 2:30pm Brandeis College Middlebury, VT

3/25 3pm UC Irvine Irvine, CA

3/26 2:30pm Azusa Pacific Azusa, CA

3/28 4pm Pomona Pitzer College Claremont, CA

3/30 12pm CMS Claremont, CA

4/6 12pm Wesleyan Univ Middlebury, VT

4/14 12pm Williams College Middlebury, VT

4/20 2pm Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME

4/27 12pm Amherst College Amherst, MA

Potential Postseason Schedule:

5/3-5 All Day NESCAC Championships Middlebury, VT

5/9-11 All Day NCAA 1st-3rd rounds TBD

5/20-25 All Day NCAA Championships Kalamazoo, MI

Thanks for reading along and stay tuned for more blog updates soon!

Go Midd!

The Middlebury Men’s Tennis Coach Staff