Dominant in their fall season swan song, the tennis teams sent a clear message to the Ivy League that it is ready for 2014, with the exciting prospect of success to replace the memory of a spring season that left the Big Green knowing it could do better. The men traveled to Minneapolis to compete in the Gopher Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota, and Cambridge, Mass., to compete in the Harvard Halloween Invitational, while the women enjoyed their first home action of the fall campaign in the Big Green Invitational, which included West Virginia University, the University of Massachusetts and Boston University.
“This was a really good way to close our fall season,” Taylor Ng ’17 said. “We made a strong statement that we’re ready to compete moving forward and that we’re going to bring everything we have in the winter and spring seasons.”
In the opening game, the doubles pairing of Katherine Yau ’16 and Ng set the tone of their match and served as a harbinger for the Big Green’s excellent weekend. The duo won the match 8-0 and the women went 11-1 for the day.
“Our coach talked to us a lot this weekend about the idea that there are a few critical points that can determine the outcome of a whole match,” Yau said. “Even though that point was in the first game, it really made a huge difference in that match and helped propel us to go on and win 8-0.”
The Big Green enjoyed a clean sweep of doubles, with all eight of the team members competing and winning in their four matches against UMass on the first day. The singles action was much of the same, as the women took seven out of the eight matches, with six of the wins coming in straight sets. Julienne Keong ’16 lost a three-set match that teetered back and forth before ultimately culminating in a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 win for UMass senior Jessica Podlofsky.
Captain Melissa Matsuoka ’14 saw herself down a set early before battling back and completing her three-set comeback 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
“Her opponent had two hands on both sides and won the first set by hitting aggressive baseline shots and moving into net successfully,” Ng said of Matsuoka. “As the match went on, Melissa figured out how to take advantage of the limited reach that comes with having two hands on both sides and was able to really move stretch her opponent on both sides of the court.”
The women ended their weekend by winning seven of its eight singles matches against Boston University on Sunday, leaving them with a 27-5 record for the weekend. Sarah Bessen ’16 double bageled junior Sophie Wyman and Ng posted a similarly dominant 6-0, 6-1 line over freshman Barbara Rodriguez. Overall, the Dartmouth women dominated, going 27-5, and are poised to make an impact in the Ancient Eight come springtime.
The men got off to a hot start on Friday in the Twin Cities, winning seven out of nine singles matches and splitting its four doubles matches principally against the hometown Gophers. After dropping his first set 6-1, Chris Kipouras ’15 battled back to take his second set 7-5 and the third set tiebreaker 10-2.
“Coach wanted us to work on our championship presence,” George Wall ’17 said. “We brought a high level of competitive energy to every one of our matches and stayed together as one unit throughout the course of the weekend.”
Sam Todd ’15 and Erik Nordahl ’16 won their doubles on Friday 8-3, and the duo of Kipouras and Diego Pedraza ’17 started its weekend run with an 8-2 win.
“Kip and Diego played some unreal doubles,” Brendan Tannenbaum ’16 said. “They were laying beat downs on their opponents all weekend.”
The men continued their excellent form on Saturday, winning 11 singles and three doubles matches. The men started Saturday by posting a singles clean slate over Western Michigan University, taking all eight matches, six of them in straight sets.
The WMU doubles pairing of Marc Shideler and Pablo Mora prevented a total Big Green sweep by edging Nordahl and Todd 8-5 to give WMU one victory in its four doubles matches against Dartmouth.
The men closed Saturday with five singles matches against the University of Denver. Dartmouth took three out of those five singles matches to end the day with 14 wins out of its 17 matches. Pedraza fell in an extremely tight three set match 5-7, 6-4, 10-7.
On the final day of the Gopher Invitational, the Big Green men successfully closed out their weekend of redemption. Facing off against DePaul University after going 2-3 against Blue Demons last year, the men took six out of the eight singles matches. Much like Pedraza the day before him, Tannenbaum fell in a similarly close three set match 6-7 (4), 6-4, 10-5 to DePaul sophomore Jan-Willem Feilzer.
Nordahl, Brandon DeBot ’14, Cameron Ghorbani ’14, and George Wall ’17 all ended the weekend undefeated in singles.
“Last year, we were really disappointed with our results at the Gopher Invitational ending our fall season, so it was a really good feeling for us to have a great turnaround and finish off the fall season on such a high note,” Justin Chan ’16 said.
Max Schmidt ’17 and Blake Niehaus ’17, who went down to Harvard, won three of four singles matches and one of their two doubles matches, before falling in the Flight B Final and Consolation Final, respectively, to players from the U.S. Military Academy.
The men return to action on Jan. 18 at home, while the women compete next on Jan. 25 at Boston College.
