Stellar End to Fall 2022 Season

Your Panthers wrapped up the Fall season in a big way posting a lot of impressive results across our final two fall tournaments. We recap those results below, but first begin by expressing our sincerest gratitude.

Zihao going all out on this backhand volley! He and the Panthers have had a wonderful fall season.

Thank You for Your Support in Our Panther Challenge

There is no other way to properly begin this blog post than to thank so many who supported us during our Proud to Be a Panther Challenge fundraiser. We had wonderful participation and all contributions will go directly toward supporting our student-athletes tennis experience. There are so many variables that contribute to making a four-year college tennis career special, and we would not be the program we are today without the DNA of our Middlebury Tennis traditions from the players and coaches who came before us, as well as the ongoing support we are so lucky to receive from alumni, family, and friends! From donations, to bringing snacks and lunches at tournaments, off-court mentorship, and more we are beyond fortunate for all that is done to support us! Huge shout out to everyone in our Midd Tennis Family!

Our program relies on teamwork all on levels both on and off the court!

Wesleyan Invitational

The Panthers continued their rise through the fall and came out swinging across the board at the Wesleyan Invitational. There were two draws of 24 players, A and B flights, filled with talented players from four other strong DIII programs and one DI program. Taking matches one step at a time, the Panthers imposed their will on the tournament. We began the tournament flawlessly going 3-0 in the round of 32 (with 3 byes for our other competitors) and then finished with a punctuation mark of winning both the A and B singles flights.

Nathan Jackson served up some special tennis
en route to winning the B Flight Singles Draw

Major highlights included: 

• Robby Ward won two main draw matches in the A singles draw making his run to the quarterfinals, and then added a back draw win on Sunday. 
• Zihao Yuan winning three main draw matches in the A singles draw, including taking out the #1 seed on his run to the semifinal.
• B Flight champion, Nathan Jackson winning 5 straight singles matches to capture the B flight crown finding his way through a competitive draw.
• A Flight champion, Julian Wu winning 4 straight singles matches to capture the A flight crown, earning several stellar victories of top opponents including besting the #2 seed.
• A full recap of results can be found here.

Dartmouth Invitational

The Panthers ended our fall season on an impressively high note with some stellar results at the Dartmouth Invitational. The tournament consisted of players from two DIII teams (Middlebury and Williams) and four DI programs (Brown, Dartmouth, Boston University, and Yale). The level of competition was very strong, but the Panthers came in determined and ready to demonstrate the prowess of DIII tennis. Matchplay consisted of compass draw style play where each of our players competed in three singles and three doubles matches across the weekend. Aggregating results for the five players we had competing, we went 11-4 in singles play and 4-3 in doubles play. 

Julian Wu has been a force this fall going 7-0 in his last 7 singles matches.

Highlights included:

• Julian Wu won all 3 of his singles matches (vs Williams, BU, and Dartmouth).
• Robby Ward won all 3 of his singles matches (vs Williams, BU, and Williams).
• Neel Epstein winning 3 straight singles matches (vs Williams, Dartmouth, and Yale).
• Zihao Yuan posted an impressive three-set victory in singles vs BU.
• Nathan Jackson posted an impressive three-set victory in singles vs Williams.
• Yuan/Wu posted a 2-1 winning record in doubles including a win over a top Williams pair.
• Ward/Epstein posted an impressive doubles win over Brown University.
• Full recap of results can be seen here.

Neel Epstein, one of three of our Panthers who captured victory
in all 3 of his singles matches over the Dartmouth Invite!

Upcoming Schedule

Please stay tuned for our finalized spring dual match schedule as well as our senior and alumni weekend! 

Go Midd!