After a mediocre 10-8 regular season, the men's tennis team finished eighth in the NESCAC tournament, its lowest placement in years. Despite an early winning streak, Tufts suffered in the season's final weeks, largely due to the injury of senior Adam DeMezza.
This season's lineup consistsed of DeMezza, Scott Roehm, Chris Fuke, Sen Siva, Adam Scott and Seth Litt. The team began its season during spring break, on a trip at Grene Lefe resort outside of Orlando, Florida. There, the team won four matches and lost two, beating all of the Division III teams at the resort. The Jumbos scored 7-1 victories over Carleton College, Oberlin College and the College of DuPage. They also beat Grinnell College 5-2.
The Jumbos' two losses on the trip were both at the hands of Division I schools - the University of Hawaii and Wright State University. After losing to those two schools, the team settled in and beat the rest of its opponents.
"They were a good first match for us to get our bearings," Litt said. "It was really good to come off of our trip in Florida and play in New England conditions."
In the first week of the regular season, Tufts split its first two matches, beating Brandeis soundly, 6-1, but losing at Amherst by the same score. Despite the loss against Amherst, who is ranked in the top ten in the nation, the team was optimistic about its performance. The team had a good chance of winning for most of the match, but lost some close sets. The Jumbos lost three matches in the third set, and two or three games in favor of the Jumbos would have changed the results for the day.
"We were really close and played really tough against this team," Litt said.
Coach Jim Watson agreed, saying, "The team was very competitive against Amherst and had a chance to win."
After dismantling Wesleyan with a 7-0 sweep, the team faced MIT. Demezza, who missed much of last season due to a shoulder injury, rolled his ankle while warming up for the match. The senior played through his doubles match, but lost and continued for a few singles rounds. The Jumbos lost the match to MIT 4-3.
In the match against Middlebury, with Demezza out, everyone moved up a spot, giving freshman Mark Fitzgerald a position at the six spot.
"The Middlebury match was the most exciting match that I have been involved in for years," Watson said.
The Jumbos started off dominating, and took doubles before it started raining and they had to move inside. In singles, Litt and Fitzgerald played strong matches in their respective fifth and six spots, and both won in the third set. The Jumbos ended up beating Middlebury by a 4-3 margin.
After losing to top-ranked Williams, the team dropped three straight matches to Bowdoin, Boston University, and Trinity. Tufts then defeated Colby 5-2. In that victory, the Jumbos took four of six singles matches and two of three doubles matches.
"Beating Colby was really uplifting," Scott said. "We were feeling pretty down after the past few losses, and we gained a lot of confidence after that win."
After beating Babson to end the regular season, the Jumbos travelled to Amherst for the NESCAC Tournament, where they finished a disappointing eighth.
"We just didn't step up to the challenge," Watson said. "We weren't outclassed, we just couldn't get over the hump. We were in all the matches, but just couldn't pull through."
The eighth place finish was the worst in Watson's history at Tufts. Previously, the team had never finished below fourth place in the conference.
"It was pretty disappointing," Siva said. "We played hard and we didn't get blanked out by anyone."
"We had a lot of close losses this time," Watson said. "We lost to all the same guys that we lost to during the regular season."
This year, Tufts will graduate its top three players, co-captains DeMezza and Roehm, as well as Fuke. Other graduating seniors include Aaron Strasser and Jey Purushotham.
DeMezza led the team this year despite his injury. The senior finished his career as a Jumbo with a singles record of 42-17.
Roehm ended the season with a 9-9 singles record, while he combined with DeMazza to post a 10-5 record on the number one doubles team. Fuke also ended up with a 9-9 singles record, to bring his career record to 13-18. Roehm leaves Tufts with a record of 32-34. Scott finished with a strong final record as well, at 12-6 on the year.
Watson is aware of the difficulty of replacing his seniors. "We're losing our top three this year," Watson said. "Next year could be a rebuilding year, but we'll see where we are then."
