Year after year, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships have served as a showcase for Brown to flaunt its doubles prowess - and this year was no different. Captains Noah Gardner '09 and Sam Garland '09 advanced to the finals to mark the third time in four years that the Bears have sent a doubles team that far. The duo was seeded ninth in the tournament, which Yale hosted.
"(Garland and Gardner) are one of the finest doubles teams in the Ivy League," Assistant Coach Nestor Bernabe wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "I was really happy to see Sam and Noah relax and play the way they are able to play."
Gardner and Garland began their run against Georgetown University's Ned Samuelson and Adam Gross on Thursday, taking a definitive 8-3 win that helped fuel them through the rest of the competition. The match featured a controversial moment when Samuelson disagreed with one of the line calls and attempted to change the score.
According to Gardner, "Disagreements about calls happen all the time, but he tried to switch the score on us. That was a big turning point for us because we were pretty furious, so it took away a lot of our nerves."
However, both players know Samuelson well. Garland has competed against him since he was 12, and Gardner said he is a great guy.
"It was a tactic to try to stay competitive," Garland said. He added that the situation was resolved by starting over at deuce. The Bears won the game to take a 3-2 lead and never looked back.
"Winning 8-3 sent a message to the other teams," Garland said.
In the second round, the Bears defeated Yale's Michael Caldwell and Joel Samaha by a score of 8-5, which was not an easy feat, considering the Bulldogs' height advantage.
"Both players were over 6 feet 5 inches - they were huge, so they could cover a lot of court," Garland said. "They had 130-mph serves and could place it pretty well."
The Bears then recorded another 8-5 victory in the following round against Cornell's third-seeded pairing of Kyle Doppelt and Joshua Goldstein.
"We played out of our minds," Garland said. "We won the first five games in 20 minutes."
According to Gardner, the victory was especially gratifying after defeating the pair at the USTA Invitational in September.
"We've beaten them before, but they're a tough team, and they were seeded higher than us," Gardner said. "Beating them two times in a row made us feel like we were playing better. They were gunning for us, so beating them was a relief. It made us feel more validated."
Garland and Gardner certainly looked like legitimate contenders for the title when they demolished the University of Pennsylvania's Hicham Laalej and Phil Law in the quarterfinals on Sunday, Oct. 19, by a score of 8-1.
"The quarterfinal match was the halfway point," Gardner said. "We'd won three matches, and we needed three more. We made it to this point last year, but it's our senior year, so we felt like we needed to be there one more day."
In the semifinals, Gardner and Garland triumphed over No. 5 seeds Sasha Ermokov and Spencer Vergosen of Harvard. According to Garland, the match was close until they broke the Crimson to take a 5-3 lead, which they maintained for an 8-5 victory.
The final match again pitted Brown against Harvard when the Bears confronted No. 1-seeded Chris Clayton and Alexei Chijoff-Evans. Unfortunately, the Bears' winning streak ended with an 8-2 loss.
"They have been playing really well," Gardner said. "They were a little bit too tough. (Clayton) was already in the singles final, so they had nothing to lose. We came up a little short."
But the Bears were understandably proud of their performance at the tournament. "Obviously, doubles-wise, we beat a lot of people's expectations," Garland said. "I'm pretty happy with where we are."
Garland added that his friendship with Gardner - the two are roommates and have been playing doubles together since they were 10 - is a major reason for their success. "Doubles is a game of chemistry with your partner," he said. "When he's down, I pick him up, and when I'm down, he picks me up."
Bernabe agreed, saying, "Sam and Noah are like the Bryan brothers," a reference to the professional doubles team of twins Bob and Mike Bryan, who are currently ranked No. 1 in the world.
Brown's other two doubles teams advanced to the second round. Kendrick Au '11 and Nathaniel Gorham '10 defeated Cornell's Jonathan Fife and Jonathan Jaklitsch 8-4, before narrowly losing 9-7 to Princeton's sixth seeds Alex Vuckovic and Peter Capkovic, last season's Ivy League Player of the Year.
"(Nathaniel) and Kendrick were serving for the match at 7-5 (30-all)," Bernabe wrote. "They were very close to putting one of the better teams in recent years out of the tournament."
Unfortunately, the Bears were broken that game, and according to Bernabe, the Tigers played "three flawless games" afterwards to take the match.
Jonathan Pearlman '11 and Charlie Posner '11 earned a 9-7 win of their own over Harvard's Michael Hayes and Davis Mangham in the first round but were stopped by Penn State's Eddie Bourchier and Jason Lee in the second round.
The Bears began the match against Penn State down 0-6, which Bernabe called "a huge hole" when a team only needs eight games to win. But the Bears rallied to bring themselves within one game of the Lions at 6-7, although the Lions were able to maintain their lead for an 8-6 win.
Brown had a more difficult time in the singles draw - Au, Gardner, Garland and Gorham were ousted in the first round - but Brown was well represented further into the draw as Pearlman advanced to the quarterfinals.
"We lost all four singles matches on day one and found ourselves driving back to the hotel with confusion," Bernabe wrote. "(Head) Coach (Jay) Harris gave the guys a speech, and something must have triggered because the next day we came out almost the reverse from day one."
Pearlman, who was seeded ninth, had a bye in the first round, and he came out strong in his second-round match to defeat Matt Gordon of Farleigh Dickinson 6-3, 7-5.
"Jon Pearlman played big-time tennis this past weekend," Bernabe wrote. "He showed the rest of the region what he is capable of doing on the court."
Pearlman overpowered Guillaume St. Maurice of Penn State 6-4, 6-4 to reach the fourth round and advanced to the quarterfinals after soundly defeating Penn's Phil Law by a score of 6-4, 6-2.
"I was extremely pleased with my performance this weekend," Pearlman wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "I played smart, high-percentage tennis which allowed me to frustrate my opponents and come away with the big points. My serve and return were working particularly well, and I was able to work my way forward on short balls and finish off points at the net."
In the quarterfinals, Pearlman fell to the No. 1 seed, Clayton, 6-1, 2-6, 6-1.
"Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capitalize on the momentum after winning the second set in my quarterfinal match," Pearlman wrote. "I started to play tentatively in the first few games of the third set and wasn't able to recover after going down two breaks of serve."
However, Bernabe had lots of praise for Pearlman. "Jon had his moments of greatness this weekend, holding serve at crucial times," Bernabe wrote. "I feel that he was one of the five or six guys in the draw that could have won the entire tournament."
Meanwhile, Au bounced back from his first-round defeat to reach the finals of the backdraw. Au demolished Hartford's Ricky Dove 6-2, 6-2, then defeated Temple's Ricardo Velasquez and Stony Brook's Youssef Fassi-Fehri by respective scores of 6-3, 6-2 and 7-5, 6-2. In the semifinals, Au triumphed 6-3, 7-6 over Yale's Erik Blumenkranz.
"(Au) did a great job," Gardner said. "I'm proud of Kendrick and Jon. We appreciated the younger guys because it's a grind, playing from Thursday to Tuesday, but they made it easier for us to want to stay there and keep fighting."
Despite missing injured teammates Chris Lee '09 and Basu Ratnam '09, who advanced to the semifinals of the doubles draw last year, the Bears were pleased with their performances.
"We had a really great run. I'm feeling good about the team, and hoping we keep up the doubles success for the spring," Garland said.
Some of the Bears will compete next at the Big Green Invitational from Nov. 1 to 3. Brown traditionally sends its less experienced players to this tournament hosted by Dartmouth.