On the heels of a three-match winning streak, the men’s tennis team lost all three of its matches at the ECAC Division I Indoor Championships this weekend. As the sixth-seeded team out of eight, the Bears (4-3) fell 4-0 to all three of their opponents — No. 34 Dartmouth, St. John’s and eventual tournament champion No. 45 Princeton.
“It’s a process. We need to get a feel for what level of play we need to get to,” said co-captain Lucas Da Silveira ’16.
The Bears started off play with their match against Princeton (8-2) Friday. Doubles play was hotly contested, as Greg Garcia ’17 and Peter Tarwid ’18 battled to the team’s only match victory. Jack Haworth ’18 and Mladen Mitak ’19 nearly secured the doubles point for the Bears but fell in a tiebreaker 7-5. The Tigers then snatched the deciding doubles match and the point.
In singles, the Tigers won three matches, halting play as they had secured four points, the threshold for overall victory.
The following two days against Darmouth and St. John’s consisted of more of the same. Against the Big Green (6-4), the Bears played more competitively than they had against Princeton. They once again fell in doubles play — this time losing two matches first, making the third one a moot point.
The Big Green then sealed three victories in singles play to emerge victorious. In the first singles match, Garcia went up against Dovydas Sakinis, who is ranked 50th in ITA national rankings, and lost in straight sets 6-1, 6-3. Many of the singles matches were tightly fought, but the Bears found themselves on the losing end more often than not. Mitak managed to win his first set, but his match went unfinished after the Big Green sealed the three points it needed to complete its sweep.
In the very last consolation game, the Bears were swept once again, this time by the Red Storm of St. John’s.
“We still have a long way to go,” Da Silveira said. “We have to get healthy, and all around, we need to keep improving.”
The Bears hope to rest, recover and then rebound next week against Bryant and Boston College.
