After playing well at the Middlebury Invitational two weeks ago, the men's tennis squad continued its strong play this past weekend at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Regional Championships hosted by Williams College. The ITAs showcased a number of top Div. III standouts and presented a tough challenge to the ever-improving Tufts team.
Coach Jaime Kenney's new-look 2012 team looked sharp from the start. Both doubles teams and almost all the singles players representing the Jumbos won at least one match convincingly on Friday morning, including freshman standout Jay Glickman, who managed to advance to the third round of the singles draw.
Glickman took home his first two victories with little stress, defeating Bates' Henry Lee 6-0, 6-1 followed by Middlebury's Courtney Mountifield 6-4, 6-3. While senior tri-captain Andrew Lutz won his first round match 6-0, 7-5, he fell to fourth-seed Trey Meyer from Williams in a second-round, three-set thriller. Both doubles pairings fought extremely well, yet neither made it past the second round.
Although some of the Jumbos did lose tight matches at ITAs, spirits nevertheless remained high following the tournament.
"It was a great team effort, and while we had tough competition, we competed very well," Lutz said. "It was definitely good to scout our opponents, and we're fired up to both play at the Bates Invitational next weekend and then to play these teams again in the spring."
Now that the Jumbos have two tournaments under their belt, Kenney feels extremely confident about her team's potential for the upcoming season.
"Our theme for 2012-2013 is all about the process," Kenney said. "As long as we continue to work hard in practice, the results will come."
The members of this year's squad believe that despite the stiff competition that the NESCAC presents every year, Tufts will fare extremely well once dual matches begin at the end of October. Kenney notes that senior tri-captains Lutz, Mark Westerfield and Andrew McHugh have a solid plan for this season.
"For these captains, it's team first 100 percent," Kenney said. "While we lost two strong players that graduated this past year, we continue to get better everyday and no one player here is any more important than the next."
One major piece to the 2012-2013 puzzle will be Glickman, a first year who comes in to head Kenney's recruiting class, which, according to tennisrecruiting.net, was the eighth best in Div. III. Glickman played at the top of the ladder for Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, N.Y. last year, and will jump right into a top singles spot this season for the Jumbos.
"When I first got to know Jay a couple years ago, I never thought I would be able to get him to come play here at Tufts," Kenney said. "Now that he has settled into our starting rotation, I know he's a terrific fit and will be a wonderful addition to this team for the next four years."
The Jumbos should be one of the deepest teams in the NESCAC, as Kenney has brought in a number of other freshmen to complement her squad, including Rob Jacobson, Josh Girson and Karl Wilander, along with Bulgarian junior champion Nick Telkedzhiev.
"We're going to try as best we can to hold firm against these top teams," Jacobson said. "We can definitely compete with them all, and it should be an exciting season."
