Women
Holding court at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the women’s tennis team was slotted into various singles and doubles brackets, with first-year Gabby Devlin winning the Flight C Singles title, her second title in as many tournaments, and the senior-first-year tandem of Mimi Bell and Jennifer Newman winning the Flight B doubles title.
Devlin entered her singles bracket unseeded, but went on to collect wins over from opponents from Stony Brook, the Univ. of Conn., Army and West Virginia Univ., before pulling out the title with a grueling 7-5, 6-4 win over a player from Quinnipiac.
Bell and Newman were the fourth-seeded pair in their bracket, but they quickly shed their tag as they romped past several Div. I opponents, including those from Fordham, Hofstra, Bucknell, Army and the Univ. of Mass. en route to the title.
In the Flight singles A bracket, first-year Jordan Brewer, who was seeded seventh overall, continued her impressive start to the season, closing out wins over two opponents before being ousted in the quarterfinals. In the doubles bracket of the Flight A tier, senior Natasha Brown and sophomore Caroline Richman pulled together a semifinals run after besting opponents from Marist, St. John’s and Long Island Univ. before losing to Fordham. Brown and Richman were one of only two Div. III partners in the Flight A doubles bracket.
Junior Laura Danzig also put together a noteworthy run, as she made it all the way to the semifinals of the Flight B singles bracket. And in a display of Amherst’s first-year dominance across all the brackets, Lauren Slutsky ’14 was unseeded in the Flight D singles bracket and still reined her way into the semifinals.
Men
In its first action this fall, the men’s team snuck out of Williamstown with the doubles title from the ITA regionals, after the duo of senior Moritz Koenig and junior Wes Waterman pulled away from the pair of Mark Kahan and Luis Rattenhuber 9-8(7) in the finals.
Koenig and Waterman came into the tournament without any expectations, as they had only played one match together previously. “Even though we had only practiced together twice before, we took to each other quickly, bringing the right energy and focus throughout the tournament,” said the senior of his junior partner.
Their first three matches were, for the most part, surprisingly uneventful, as they cruised past Middlebury, MIT, the top-ranked pairing from Brandeis, and archrival Williams by scores of 8-4, 8-3, 8-3 and 8-4. Kahan and Rattenhuber traversed an equally treacherous path to the doubles final, as their second-round match also featured a 9-7 score.
Both pairs saved their best for their fellow team members — a match complicated by more than just four teammates vying for the same title. “Facing our teammates in the final was a difficult situation, especially because I played doubles with Mark Kahan all of last year. In a match that really came down to the wire, Wes and I were just more fortunate on a couple of key points,” continued Koenig.
Also competing in the doubles tournament were partners Robby Sorrel ’12 and Justin Reindel ’14, who advanced to the second round.
The consolation prize for Kahan and Rattenhuber? Seeded third and fifth in the tournament’s singles bracket, both players led the Jeffs in advancing to the quarterfinals. After each earned a first-round bye, Kahan dismissed his first two opponents before losing to the eventual runner-up in three sets. Rattenhuber toughed out a first-set loss in the third-round to defeat his opponent 2-6, 7-6(6), 6-2. However, he ran out of gas in the fourth round, despite winning the first set of that match.
Reindel and Waterman each also won their first two matches before being ousted.
The early success could be a sign of things to come, but it has yet to bloat the Jeffs’ ego: “While it was great to be able to get two doubles teams to the final, we cannot be satisfied with our performances in the singles draw,” said Koenig. “We will try to analyze the problems and use them as further motivation to continue working towards our fall break trip in two weeks.”