For nearly one week, the men's tennis team battled the best players in the Northeast in the Intercollegiate Tennis Assoc-iation Northeast Regional Championships - the "toughest individual tournament of the fall," according to Head Coach Jay Harris. But Brown emerged at the top of the pack, winning the doubles title and posting several strong victories in singles.
Co-captain Phil Charm '06 and Dan Hanegby '07 paired up as the fourth-seeded doubles team in the tournament, but they proved that they had been underestimated. After advancing with a bye in the first round, Charm and Hanegby had five consecutive victories, including wins against seeded teams from the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University and Yale. In the final match, Charm and Hanegby defeated second-seeded Jimmy and Marty Moore of Columbia with a score of 8-6.
"It was very tight," Charm said. "But we've had experience and practice being in difficult situations. We were able to work through it."
Harris was very pleased with the performance of the team of Charm and Hanegby. "They really fought hard, and they got a lot better every match," he said. "It was good to show how consistent they are, to win the entire tournament. They showed that they're the best (pair) in the region."
Harris also noted, "This is the third year in the last five years that our doubles won the tournament. We're living up to that expectation of our program."
In other doubles play, the duo of Sam Garland '09 and Chris Lee '09 defeated Jared Dye and Peter George of Seton Hall University 8-5 in their opening match, before falling to seventh-seeded Nicholas Delgado and Albert Larregola of Virginia Tech 8-6 in the second round.
Also suffering an early doubles loss were Eric Thomas '07 and Saurabh Kohli '08, who fell in the first round to Tal Meir and Mike Crooks of Stony Brook University in a close 8-6 match.
"There were a few points here and there in the match that we could have won," Kohli said. "It was awful because last year we made it to the semifinals."
Kohli experienced better results in singles play, earning a convincing 6-3, 6-4 victory over Patrick Adams of St. Joseph's University in the first round. Although Kohli had to face the second-seeded Arvid Puranen of Virginia Tech in the next round, he put up a good fight, losing by a close score of 7-5, 6-4.
Thomas, who was seeded ninth in singles, had a bye in the first round, before defeating Diego Alvarado of Manhattan College, Mike Accordino of Columbia and Zoltan Bus of Manhattan to reach the quarterfinals. In his quarterfinal match, Thomas faced first-seeded Brandon Wai of Yale and fell 6-2, 6-1.
Hanegby, the fifth seed, also advanced to the singles quarterfinals. After a bye in the first round, he easily earned straight set victories over Crooks, 22nd seed Nikola Djordjevic of Hofstra University and 28th seed Josh Raff of Cornell. But in the quarterfinals, Hanegby lost 6-3, 7-6 (3) to Puranen, who added a second victory against Brown to his record.
"I thought (Hanegby) would beat him," Kohli said. "I was surprised."
Meanwhile, 18th-seeded Charm advanced to the Round of 32. Like Hanegby and Thomas, Charm earned a bye in the first round, and he took care of his second-round match in straight sets. But his next match, against 16th-seeded Sasha Ermakov of Harvard, was not as easy, and Charm fell 7-5, 6-3.
Two other Bears, co-captain Luke Tedaldi '06 and Mike Scherer '08, also competed in singles. Tedaldi won his first-round match 1-6, 6-1, 6-1 against Martin MacIntyre of Colgate University, but fell to top seed Wai in the next round. Meanwhile, Scherer failed to advance past the first-round match, losing to Eddie Kang of Army, 7-5, 6-2.
Despite a few disappointing losses, the Bears thought their overall play was strong. "We did play a few tough matches, but none of us went down easily," Kohli said.
Since Charm and Hanegby grabbed the doubles title, they will compete next week in the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, which will be held in Columbus, Ohio. The entire Bears' next tournament will be the Dartmouth Invitational, which begins Nov. 5.
Harris thinks the team's results from this tournament bode well for their future competitions. "We had a really great weekend," he said. "We had a lot of really strong wins, and that shows the depth of our team, from top to bottom."
