After a groundbreaking 2010-11 campaign, in which the men's tennis team won its most matches in 15 years and reached the NESCAC Championships for the first time since the tournament went to a six-team format in 2006, the Jumbos' program appears to be on the rise. With a deep roster that returns almost all of last year's starters, the squad is set to begin its fall season under the direction of new head coach Jaime Kenney.
While Tufts lost to Bowdoin, 5-1, in the first round of NESCACs this past May, Kenney was coaching the women's team to its first NCAA Quarterfinals appearance. Although she was the women's assistant coach for the last two years, she took over full coaching duties while head coach Kate Bayard was pregnant, and she was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Assistant Coach of the Year.
In August, Kenney was hired to run the men's program, making her the only female coach of a men's tennis team in the NESCAC. So far, she likes what she's seeing from the squad.
"I'm impressed because from the day they stepped out on the court it looked like all of them worked hard over the summer," Kenney said. "It looked like they put a lot of time into being prepared when they got back, and it's just nice to see as a coach that everybody looks like they've come back thinking, ‘This is the year.'"
The players are also on board.
"I think overall everyone is on the same page, as in we're trying to win," said senior MorrieBossen, who is a tri-captain along with classmates Kai Victoria and Sam Laber. "Everyone has fallen in line with coach Kenney's plan for the team, and as a result I think we've had some good practices so far."
The Jumbos graduated only two seniors after last season and are returning their entire lineup from the NESCAC tournament. Their roster includes three seniors, four juniors, five sophomores and one freshman, and, unlike in past years, that's what the team will consist of all the way through the spring.
"The policy for this team going forward while I'm coaching is, ‘I want to look down the courts and feel like that's my teammate for the next year,'" Kenney said. "I think it's very hard to build a team atmosphere when you don't know if that's going to be your teammate two months from now."
Still, the lineup is hardly set in stone, and a few minor injuries as well as the absence of junior Mark Westerfield — who is abroad for the fall — will lead to some lineup shifts come springtime, assuming everyone stays healthy.
The fall season, which is less than two months long, is a time for players to work on skills and see where they stack up individually at the ITA Regional Championships in late September.
"We have a good enough [fall] schedule that I can see them compete, but also a light enough schedule that we can really work on some things in practice," Kenney said. "The fall season gives the guys an opportunity to work on their game, to practice some things that you don't want to practice when you're in the thick of the season in April."
The spring season, on the other hand, is more critical, featuring conference matchups, conference championships and potentially NCAAs.
To bring the Jumbos to where they want to be in the spring — a top-four finish in the NESCAC — Kenney has made a couple of minor tweaks to the system, such as focusing more on drills and less on match play in practice. In addition, Kenney will emphasize an aggressive style of doubles play that she believes is crucial to the team's improvement, and she recently ordered a new Macintosh video system that she hopes to use as a teaching tool for doubles strategies.
New assistant coach Karl Gregor — who attended and coached at the U.S. Air Force Academy, served for five years as an Air Force Captain and competes in the Boston Pro Tennis League — is reinforcing these changes.
Under Kenney and Gregor, every player will be treated equally.
"[They are] increasing the accountability and equality in terms of everyone's commitment level to the team, which I think is a good thing," Bossen said. "It's a uniform set of expectations for everyone."
Now, with the necessary pieces in place for Tufts to become a formidable NESCAC opponent, it's up to the players to make it happen.
"It's an individual sport," Kenney said, "but really the only thing I care about is our team winning. I want to see them all succeed, but what's important to me at the end of the day is that we're winning matches. And it takes everyone on the team to do that."
As the program improves, the goals get loftier.
"Last year our big goal was to make NESCACs, and we made it, but once we got there Bowdoin beat us relatively easily," Bossen said. "I think our goal is definitely making NESCACs again, but this time winning some matches there — not just being happy to be there."
