Coming off of a pair of crucial Ivy League wins, including a dramatic third set tiebreaker, the men’s tennis team heads into the weekend with an opportunity to lock up its best Ivy finish in over a decade.
Last weekend, the Big Green (16-5, 3-1 Ivy) welcomed the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University to the renovated Thompson outdoor courts, defeating the Quakers 4-1 and knocking off the Tigers with a dramatic 4-3 victory that came down to the final match.
In the Sunday matinee against Princeton (12-10, 2-3 Ivy), the Big Green faced a back-and-forth battle. The Tigers took the doubles point, but Dartmouth rallied in the singles matches, tying the match at 3-3 with wins from Cameron Ghorbani ’14, Diego Pedraza ’17 and George Wall ’17.The final match was at the number one position between Dartmouth’s Dovydas Sakinis ’16 and Princeton junior Zack McCourt, described by several Big Green players as the most nerve-wracking tennis they had ever seen.
Sakinis won the first set 7-6 before dropping the second 5-7. Sakinis went up 3-0 in the third, but a series of breaks for both players allowed McCourt to take a 6-5 lead.
“We try to tell them in the close moments to be as calm and composed as possible,” head coach Chris Drake said. “Dovydas had chances to close out the match earlier, and often when you don’t do that it can be hard to stay with it. He did a great job just staying in there and giving himself chances.”
Sakinis refused to give in, breaking McCourt to tie the deciding set at six and bring the match into a critical tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker was tense, with the two players tying six times before Sakinis snuck out a 10-9 win to take the match for Dartmouth.
“The entire day was on the line, our best against their best,” Wall said. “A third set tiebreaker is crazy no matter what. But with stakes like that, it was incredible. I think that win was why we all play tennis.”
Against Penn (6-12, 2-3 Ivy), the Big Green dropped the doubles point before coming back to take the first four singles matches to finish, ending the match early.
“I think we came out a little tight in doubles, we were playing a little bit not to lose,” Drake said. “In singles the guys were very resilient. We talked after and set our minds to not giving them any points in singles.”
The two clinching matches came from Brandon DeBot ’14, who tallied a long 7-6, 7-5 win to put Dartmouth up 3-1 and Chris Kipouras ’15 sealed the match by defeating his opponent 3-6, 7-6, 6-0 after a dominant final set.
“I was struggling a little bit trying to find my game,” Kipouras said. “As it was getting closer, I started finding my shots and feeling more confident with my game. I was going for smarter, high-percentage shots.”
Playing on the newly renovated Thompson courts, which have space for six courts, as opposed to five at the Topliff courts, gave the Big Green an advantage in the Penn match, Drake said. Wall won his match quickly at the sixth spot, allowing Dartmouth to tie the score at one early in the match and changing the momentum while the sixth match would have been played later at the old courts.
The team has another pair of Ivy matches this weekend, visiting Yale University Friday afternoon and returning home to face Brown University on Sunday. The two are the bottom two teams in the Ivy League standings.Despite the potential for making history, the coaching staff has stressed consistent improvement as the team looks to stay in the running for an Ivy title and NCAA tournament berth.
“We showed really good toughness last weekend, but we didn’t necessarily play our best,” Drake said. “We want to try and impose on teams more. We are really good with our backs against the wall, but we want to come up with a little more of an intimidating presence.”
The team is also focusing on improving its doubles play to grab the initial point, which it dropped in both matches last weekend.
The Brown (10-10, 0-4 Ivy) match will be the final home competition for DeBot and Ghorbani, who have been a critical part of the program’s transformation, Drake said.
The match starts at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Thompson courts.
