This past weekend, the men’s tennis team traveled to Williams College for the Wilson/Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) New England Championships. Six of the top 25 teams in Div. III were represented: Middlebury (5), Williams (6), Bowdoin (10), Trinity (13), Amherst (15), and Bates Colleges (22). The Jeffs had five players who qualified for the three-day tournament, as senior captain Zack Lerner, junior Daniel Kim, sophomore Moritz Koenig, and first-years Surain Asokaraj and Andrew Jung made the trip. Though tournament play was plagued by uncooperative weather, Amherst still managed to perform well in both singles and doubles.
Being able to draw upon a strong lineup, the Jeffs felt confident going into the ITAs. “We have a number of new faces who are looking for an opportunity to contribute,” noted Head Coach Chris Garner. “Practices have been a lot more competitive because a number of spots are up for grabs.” Added Daniel Kim ’10, “We suffered some big losses last year as four seniors graduated. Thankfully we’ve got a great class of freshman.”
The ITAs were the first serious test this season for both returning and rookie players. But the Jeffs’ power in singles turned out to be weaker than expected. Asokaraj was competitive against Middlebury’s Eric Vehovec, but he lost in the opening round of singles, 3-6, 4-6. Kim was also knocked out of the opening round by Bates’ Nicholas Shadowen. Kim played a solid first set, losing by a close 6-4 margin, but had trouble stopping his opponent’s momentum in the final set, ending with a 6-1 loss. Koenig narrowly missed advancing past the first round of singles play. He won the first set 6-4, but Jeremy Weinberger of Williams made a comeback in the second set to win it 7-5. Koenig was unable to regain momentum, losing the tiebreaker set, 10-6. Jung easily bypassed Brian Wee of MIT but could not gain the upperhand against Williams’s Will Petrie in the second round, losing 6-7(6), 7-5, (7-10).
The sophomore remained appreciative of the depth of the Jeffs’ lineup. “We will be able to compensate injuries easier and should be stronger towards the bottom of the line up than we were last year,” he said.
Lerner, who advanced to be a semi-finalist in the top singles bracket last fall, suffered the misfortune of having to compete against the eventual champion—not an uncommon occurrence for the Jeffs’ leader. Entering as the No. 3 seed Lerner had a bye the first singles round. He then cruised past Alex Caughron of Bowdoin and Rick Devlin of Williams in straight sets, but could not put up much of a fight against Middlebury College’s Conrad Olson in the next match.
In doubles, however, Lerner fared better, teaming up with Koenig to play the No. 1 spot for Amherst. They overpowered Salem State College’s pair of Alexander Eiseth and Rob Random, 8-2, in the first round. The Amherst duo had no problem taking out Josh Cranin and Kent Winningham from Bowdoin in the second round, either. They finally confronted serious challengers in the No. 1 seeded pair of Ben Stein and Amrit Rupainge of Bates College. Lerner and Koenig played a fairly close match against the Bobcats, but could not eke out a win, falling 8-4. Stein and Rupainge went on to become the ITA doubles champions.
In their opening round, Kim and Jung narrowly beat the doubles team from Brandeis University. However, they fell to Trinity College, 7-9, in a heartbreakingly close match in the Round of 16.
Whatever the outcome, Coach Garner called the ITAs “a great learning experience because we saw the quality of opponents on our schedule. It makes it a lot easier for the players to understand the improvement we need to keep striving for in order to be a competitive team in the NESCAC.”
Koenig agreed. “Now know we have to improve in doubles, get in better shape and compete hard to be able to perform at the high level that we expect of ourselves.”