The no. 63 men's tennis team will face the no. 18 University of Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament May 12 at Texas A&M University.
Wednesday night found the Co-Ivy League Champion Bears gathered in the Pizzitola Center watching the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on ESPNews to find out who they will face next weekend.
There was a pause as the first eight teams appeared on the television screen, but the shouts of excited players broke the tension as they found Brown listed at the bottom of the screen, slated to take on the Fighting Irish.
"This is great," said Eric Thomas '07. "Playing in Texas is exciting."
"I'm excited about where we are as a team," said Head Coach Jay Harris. "We've won our last six matches in a row. We're a dangerous team heading in."
According to Thomas, the Bears need to focus on keeping "the confidence we had in the Ivies." Other concerns for the players include the extreme heat in Texas and scheduling their schoolwork around the competition.
But Tedaldi said the team must also remember to have fun, calling the NCAA Tournament "the icing on the cake."
"If we have fun in Texas, we can upset Notre Dame," he said. "We're a very dangerous team right now. I wouldn't want to face us."
The flight to Texas may be long, but the Bears' journey to reach this point has been even longer. After dropping its second Ivy match to the University of Pennsylvania, Brown was behind the Quakers in the conference standings and had to hope someone would upset them later in the season to have a shot at claiming the conference crown. The Bears ran off five straight wins to finish the Ivy season 6-1 and with Harvard knocking off Penn, the two finished tied atop the conference. Since the Ivy League only awards one automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament, the two rivals battled each other for the bid on Sunday.
The Bears took the doubles point without much struggle. Co-captain Phil Charm '06 and Chris Lee '09 defeated Jason Pinsky and Joseph Lok 8-3 at first doubles, while Saurabh Kohli '08 and Dan Hanegby '07 defeated Jonathan Boym and Mikhail Bekker 8-6 at second doubles to give Brown a 1-0 lead.
But the Quakers stormed through the start of singles play, taking straight-set wins over Hanegby, Basu Ratnam '09 and Thomas in the top three singles positions. "They beat us pretty bad, pretty quick," Thomas said.
Fortunately, Kohli easily defeated Lok 6-3, 6-1 at fourth singles, and at sixth singles, Lee pulled out a 6-4, 6-3 win over Brandon O'Gara, despite battling injuries to his hip and groin, to tie the match at three.
Both teams' chances of advancing to the NCAA Tournament rested on the match between co-captain Luke Tedaldi '06 and Justin Fox at fifth singles. Tedaldi had been in this crucial position the previous week against Harvard and emerged the hero of that match with an impressive 6-2, 6-2 win. This time, he had to work a bit harder but was again able to come through. After falling behind 4-2 in the first set, he battled back to force a tiebreaker, which he won 7-5.
Tedaldi's match was being played on a court removed from the others, so he did not know the importance of his match until he saw his teammates and fans gathering at his court. But Tedaldi said recent experience in crucial matches helped.
"Two weeks ago, I would have been nervous," he said. "But I was so comfortable (Sunday)."
Tedaldi broke Fox early in the second set, eventually bringing the score to 5-4 as he served for the match. After failing to capitalize on his first two match points, Tedaldi won the third with a powerful serve and two strong forehands to clinch Brown's berth in the NCAA Tournament.
"Luke got to hog the spotlight for a couple more minutes," Harris said.
"I was really happy to be given that opportunity," Tedaldi said. "It was an amazing way to end Ivy League play."
