After back-to-back weekends of marathon tennis, the Tufts men’s tennis team closed out its fall slate at the 2025 Intercollegiate Tennis Association New England Regionals, hosted at the Vouté Courts in Medford. The event capped a season marked by growth, experimentation and the steady emergence of a new generation of Jumbos who understand that victory means much more than standings or seedings.
Across the three-day competition, Tufts placed multiple players deep into both the main and “B” draws. Senior co-captains Sacha Maes and Alex Ganchev advanced to the semifinals of the main doubles draw, and sophomore Nico Tremblay and first-year Jackson Rich each reached the “B” singles final in an all-Tufts contest that resulted in Rich’s first collegiate title.
The Jumbos may not have reached the national ITA stage like last year, but this fall season delivered something more lasting: the development of core habits, mutual trust and team unity that will carry them through the spring
The standard bearer
After another deep postseason run with Ganchev, Maes reflected on the team-first mentality that guided the weekend. “It’s definitely nice after these two weekends to look back,” Maes said. “It’s nice we’ve gotten a lot of matches and competition under our belt. You never really know where you’re at [until then]. Sure, we can play practice matches amongst each other, but it’s always a lot more fun and more productive if we’re able to play other schools.”
The duo’s semifinal run, ending in an 8–5 loss to Williams, mirrored the grit they had shown all season. “We were growing into the tournament the whole time, playing better and better with every match,” he recalled. “Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way in the semifinal, even though I felt like we did everything we could to prepare. Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way, but we’ll be back even stronger.”
For Maes, team success was measured in attitude, not outcomes. “Everyone showed just really good fighting spirit,” he said. “We had a lot of guys go deep in the [third set] against tough opponents. It’s never easy to always come on the court with the same discipline, but I thought everyone showed that this weekend.”
Even so, Maes believes growth depends on accountability. “If we’re looking at controllables, maybe it just could have been a bit more team cohesion,” he added. “We were kind of looking back and seeing other teams always keeping their guys accountable. It’s definitely tough, but we want to make sure that everyone knows their role on that day and is able to show up at every minute.”
This emphasis on communication has already taken form. “We’ve kind of started that by each coming up with a list of things that we have to work on,” Maes explained. “We’ve split it up into categories — mental, tactical and technical — and we’ve had each guy focus every week on one or two of those things because it helps you have clarity.” Sharing goals with teammates, he said, builds trust. “It’s very good to be also vulnerable with each other. Having that ability to feel comfortable and show your kind of vulnerabilities, weaknesses, share those with other guys, so that you can work on them together.”
And for a senior closing out his final fall run, reflection came naturally. “Yeah, that was my last ITA regional. You don’t always realize those things before or even during. It almost kind of hits you after,” Maes admitted. “But if this was going to be my last fall event, there’s no team I’d rather do it with. I think we’ve really started to build something special.”
The greatest show
In his first collegiate fall, Rich provided Tufts fans with a glimpse of the future. The first-year stormed through the “B” draw, defeating Tremblay in the title match 7–6, 7–2, 6–1, with a steadiness far beyond his years.
Rich reflected on the weekend: “I would say I’m feeling pretty positive right now. It’s great to get a lot of matches in. It’s always great to compete and be at a tournament with the team,” he said. “It definitely helps build the team culture, especially for the [first-years], just really getting to know each other and building team chemistry has been great.”
The personal takeaways were significant for the first-year. “I’m still kind of developing my game a lot,” Rich noted. “It’s good to play a lot of singles, play a lot of doubles and just learn what it’s like to kind of play at the college level.”
Reflecting on the ITA final, he described the dual role of teammate and rival. “As a team, we do a good job of being able to compete fiercely while also recognizing that we’re teammates and kind of keeping all of that animosity on the court and not off the court,” Rich said. “[Tremblay] and I are obviously super close. We both did what we could to kind of fight through that struggle. It was a pretty high-level match.”
Rich was open about the struggles he faced during the tournament. “I was definitely battling nerves. It can always be tough to get through those first rounds because you have a lot going on in your head, kind of battling negative thoughts. Then, later in the tournament, I was facing fatigue. Telling yourself you have energy even when you don’t is important.”
That resilience aligned with the mindset the upperclassmen hoped to model. “By the time the spring rolls around, we want to have confidence that we can trust in our own game for sure,” Rich said.
Jumbo sharpens Jumbo
For sophomore Tremblay, Tufts’ philosophy of process over perfection felt personal. The Australian-born player reached the “B” finals with one dominant performance after another. Beneath the steady results was a story of introspection and adaptation.
“The last two weekends were a great opportunity for the team to gauge how we were going against other teams in the region,” Tremblay reflected. The growth he saw was not just technical. “I think as a team there’s a clear goal, and honestly, personally, I think we’re closer as a team.”
As for his own play, Tremblay saw the ITA regionals as part of a longer arc. “I’ve always sort of been a player that wants to play my game style, and I’m pretty stubborn about that,” he said. “A lot of the time, players are able to sort of take that away from me, and I’m in this grey area of not really knowing what I’m doing on the court. But especially in this match and for the tournament as a whole … it was about adaptability.”
His match against Williams sophomore Jack Ling epitomized that shift. “[Ling] was a very sort of consistent opponent and was probably one of the players for me that took my game style away. So really just staying ready, taking what he gave me and then going from there instead of trying to create something that wasn’t there was something I was really proud of in that match, staying disciplined to what I thought I needed to do,” Trembaly said.
Tremblay emphasized effort over ego within team identity. “Even though we didn’t get the result that we wanted, it was nice to see everyone was committing to each aspect of being part of this team. Maybe we didn’t do it as well as some other teams, but I think it was a good start and something to work on.”
Ultimately, his philosophy echoes a theme heard from veterans like Maes: introspection and adaptation as the core of progress. “It’s something that we really strive for,” Tremblay said. “Having guys that can’t play or can only play a little, being able to perform as much as they could because of injuries is something going forward that we should look into more to see if we can prevent that.”
Foundations for the future
As sweeping as the Jumbos’ results were, their truest victory lay in transformation. Within the program, players discussed culture, consistency, accountability and shared standards of excellence. “We’ve already set a good foundation,” Maes said confidently.
If last year’s Tufts team defined success by what it won, this year’s group seems determined to define success by how it grows, day by day, point by point, teammate by teammate.
“Everybody left everything they had on the court,” Rich said. “That’s mandatory, maximum effort every single time. That’s something that’s just non-negotiable.”
While scoreboards are reset after every match, the foundation built by this team will certainly be remembered.
