The men's tennis team is finally feeling the strain of its strenuous fall schedule. Over the weekend, Brown entered the ECAC Championships as the first seed, but came away with a third-place finish.
After defeating 16th-seed Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 7-0 and 8th-seed Cornell 5-2, the Bears dropped their semifinal match 4-1 to Columbia, the fifth seed. The University of Pennsylvania won the tournament after defeating Columbia 4-0 in the finals.
"We're very disappointed," said co-captain Dan Hanegby '07. "This was one of our goals this year - to win the ECACs - and we didn't do it."
"The last couple of weeks, we've dealt with lots of injuries and some personal trauma," said Head Coach Jay Harris. "We were just a little bit drained, and that resulted in our performance not being as high as we needed it to be."
Though the Bears were not in top form, Friday's match against Rutgers posed few challenges. Brown won every match, with all of the singles wins coming in straight sets. At first singles, Hanegby breezed by Arjun Vaidya 6-2, 6-3, and in second singles, Saurabh Kohli '08 defeated Matthew Fawcett 7-5, 6-1. In the remaining singles matches, Basu Ratnam '09, co-captain Eric Thomas '07, Zach Pasanen '07 and Noah Gardner '09 did not give up more than four games combined to their opponents.
The trouncing continued in doubles. Hanegby and Chris Lee '09 defeated Vaidya and Fawcett 8-5, Kohli and Pasanen outplayed Dale Madan and Andrew Tervooren 8-1, and Gardner and Ratnam edged Alister Martin and Kazakin-Kuetey 8-7.
"We won the match pretty easily," Kohli said.
The next day's contest against Cornell was closer, but Brown emerged with only two singles losses. One came at first singles, as Hanegby fell 6-1, 6-3 to Josh Raff, and the other came at sixth singles, where Pasanen was narrowly defeated 6-7(6), 7-6(6), 6-2 by Jon Fife.
The Bears won the rest of the singles matches, despite finding themselves in third-set battles at second and fourth singles. At second singles, Kohli defeated Nick Brunner 6-3, 1-6, 7-5, and at fourth singles, Thomas defeated Rory Heggie 6-7, 6-2, 6-2. Meanwhile, Ratnam and Lee had straight-set victories at third and fifth singles, respectively.
Doubles play also posed some difficulties for the Bears, but Hanegby and Lee overcame Brunner and Raff 9-8(6) in a tight first doubles match. Kohli and Pasanen dropped the second doubles match 8-6 to Heggie and Dan Brous, but the third doubles team of Ratnam and Thomas defeated Josh Goldstein and Weston Nichols to give Brown the doubles point and a final score of 5-2.
Sunday's match against Columbia, however, ended the Bruno's hopes of taking home the title. "We ran into a very hungry Columbia team, and they just took it from us," Harris said. The only victory of the day came at second singles. Kohli defeated Paul Ratchford 7-6, 6-4.
"I just played tough out there," Kohli said. "I was confident because I haven't lost a singles match this season. I was moving pretty well."
At first singles, Hanegby dropped a 7-6, 6-2 match to Mark Clemente. At third, fourth and fifth singles, Ratnam, Thomas and Lee also suffered straight-set losses. The sixth singles match and the three doubles matches were not played, since Columbia had already earned the four points it needed to take the match.
"We needed to come out with more fire," Kohli said. "We haven't played too many tough matches, and we need to work on getting tougher."
Following the ECAC tournament, the team decided to take a few days off from practice to recover from its nonstop play these past three weeks. So far, the team has competed every weekend since the fall season started. Since Brown has been playing in tournaments so far, the squad has been competing in roughly three full days of match play each week.
"We've been able to piece together some rest here and there, but it just hasn't been enough," Harris said. "Our goal is just to get healthy and get the guys rested."
Fortunately, the Bears have some time to rest up before their next tournament. Brown will compete at the ITA Regional Championships in Philadelphia beginning Oct. 20. According to Hanegby, it will be a chance for the Bears to redeem themselves.
"We're going to keep working hard," he said. "We'll do lots of fitness. We have a few weeks to regroup and get back on track."
