With team competition over for the fall outdoor season, the Dartmouth tennis team will be competing in individual tournaments the rest of the fall.
Last weekend, Coach Charles Kinyon chose to rest his top players and sent Freshmen Gabe Sauerhoff and Erich Holzer to the Penn Classic to get some more experience.
Sauerhoff used the opportunity to climb to the finals of the back draw, where he lost 6-2, 6-2.
Had Sauerhoff won the back draw, he would have repeated the effort of this year's number one player Jim Rich '96, who won the consolation draw last year. For the weekend, Sauerhoff won three matches, including two tough three setters.
Kinyon said Sauerhoff played, "very, very well... a couple of great wins."
The 16 team Invitational drew players from America's strongest collegiate tennis programs. Each school was allowed to send two players. Kinyon chose to send Sauerhoff and Holzer as an investment in the future.
"Experience-wise this will pay big dividends down the road," Kinyon said. "[Holzer and Sauerhoff] will be key in future events. It's a good experience for both of them."
Sauerhoff, who played number five singles during the team season, lost his first match to the tournament's number three seeded player Nicholas Chisholm, of Southern Alabama 6-3, 7-6. Sauerhoff battled back after his first set loss, having three chances to put the second set away before succumbing 9-7 in the tie-break.
The loss put Sauerhoff in the consolation bracket for the rest of the tournament. He won his next three matches on Saturday and Sunday before losing in the finals of the consolation bracket to Marius Stewart, also of So. Alabama, 6-2, 6-2.
"I lost to him pretty handily, even though he plays below Chisholm," Sauerhoff said. "He got some confidence early, something you definitely don't want to let happen."
Sauerhoff said he tried changing up services, but nothing worked.
"[Stewart] started swinging from the heels, wild, but really confident ... there wasn't a lot I could do," Sauerhoff said.
The experience was important, Sauerhoff said. "Definitely the experience, that's the main thing. We went down there to see the top level. To see what we need to work on to beat that level."
Holzer said "the Penn Classic opened my eyes to the level of competition that I need to raise my game to be highly successful."
After losing in the first round to Chisholm in a close match, Sauerhoff defeated Sebastian Preauchat. Preauchat retired after he lost the first set and was down 1-0 in the second.
"He re-injured an old back injury. He hurt it earlier in the season and he had to drop out. I felt pretty good in that match." Sauerhoff came back in the first set from a 5-3 deficit to win the tie-break.
His third round match went three matches against Chris Quinn of Miami. Sauerhoff won 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, losing his first set badly.
"In the second set, the first couple of games are important ... for me to establish that I am not going to bail. I faced a break point [on his first service game], but I won the game. I broke him at 2-2 and won the set."
Sauerhoff played Urs Baertschi, the only underclassman he faced, in the fourth round.
"It was a pretty tough match, Sauerhoff said. "I got off to a really good start. After the match against Miami I really didn't want a slow start."
Sauerhoff won the first set 6-1, and then lost the second set 2-6. He maintained his confidence though and broke in the first game of the third set and won the match, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2.
Holzer, also playing singles, lost both of his matches, losing to Joel Silman of Penn 6-2, 6-7, 6-4 in the first round and then to Paul VonSaman of Southern Alabama in the back draw 7-5,0-6,7-6.
The two freshmen competed together in the doubles competition. They won there first match 8-2 against a team from Penn before losing 8-1 to Tseng and Blake from Harvard. Blake was the number one seeded player in the tournament.
The next competition will be the Rolex Championships next weekend.
