Led by Gregor, Jumbos hope to build on 2014-15 campaign

Last year, the men's tennis team finished the spring season with some of its more promising results in recent history. The Jumbos earned their highest seed ever in the NESCAC tournament -- No. 4 -- and they were right on the edge of earning an at-large bid for the NCAA Div. III tournament.This progress came on the heels of an end-of-the-season streak that featured NESCAC wins over Williams, Colby, Conn. College and Bates. Perhaps the most promising news of the offseason for the Jumbos, however, was the naming of Karl Gregor as the head coach of the men's tennis team.

Gregor, who has been with the team since 2011 as an assistant coach, served as the interim head coach last year after former head coach Jaime Kenney left the program. After the improvements it saw in 2014-15, ending the season with a No. 20 ranking from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), Tufts is hoping that the 2015-16 campaign will bring even more success.

"Even though this upcoming season will be coach Gregor's first as our official head coach, he's been an important influence on the team for the last five years, as both assistant coach and interim head coach," senior captain Rob Jacobson told the Daily in an email. "It's no secret that we had our best season in recent memory last Spring, and Coach Gregor's ascending to the head coach [position] played a major role in our success."

Gregor, who was named the ITA Northeast Assistant Coach of the Year in 2013, was not officially announced as the permanent head coach of the Jumbos until early August. This meant that neither returning players nor incoming first-year students, who had already committed to attend and play at Tufts, knew who their coach would be.

"I didn’t even know he was going to be the coach until late July, so it was still kind of up in the air," first-year Ross Kamin said. "But I’m definitely glad that he’s the coach. I think he can definitely take the team to the best they’ve ever been.”

As both Jacobson and Kamin indicate, Gregor has the confidence of all his players, young and old, for the upcoming season. Gregor has coached all returning players since they've been at Tufts, and he has gotten to see two of the three incoming first-years play on multiple occasions. The transition, therefore, should be minimal.

"I think it’s been good, like being close [by], so I can meet up with him a lot and kind of develop a relationship before I get [to Tufts]," Kamin said. "And he’s been able to see me play a couple of times, which is definitely good."

Gregor believes the three newcomers that will join the team this fall can come in and make an immediate impact, pushing the rest of the team to compete.

"It still remains to be seen how they will respond to college tennis, but I’ve got pretty high hopes for all three of them," he said. "I think they also have a lot of upside too, where hopefully they’re going to be players that are playing by far their best tennis when they’re seniors, so they’ll be developing every year.”

Beyond the three incoming first-years, this year's squad will be one built on experience: Tufts lost just one player to graduation, co-captain Brian Tan (LA '15), and it will return their entire starting lineup from last year. The senior class, which includes Roy Peleg, Nick Cary, Nik Telkedzhiev, Jay Glickman and Jacobson, will look to step up and carry the leadership duties.

“I feel like it will be more picking up where I left off,” Gregor said. “I feel like the benefits are going to be that I’ll actually have quite a bit more time to dedicate to the individual players, especially in the fall, and I won’t be trying to juggle two jobs. I’ll be here full time, and that’s when we’ve -- in the past -- been able to do the most developmental work.”

With established team chemistry and only a few kinks to work out, the Jumbos are poised to make a strong run this season. After being blanked 5-0 by Williams in the opening round of the NESCAC tournament last year, the team is surely ready to get back at it.

“I really hope that they come back hungrier, kind of seeing what they were very capable of," Gregor said. "You know, I thought we had a team that could have gotten to the NCAA [tournament] or gone very far in the NESCAC tournament, if not win it. We fell a little short, but then again it is a progression. Last year was much better than the year before."

The key to this season will be muscling out wins in close matches. Last season, the team was on the losing side of a couple of contests against some of the top teams in the country, such as Emory (5-4) and Bowdoin (5-4). Winning results in those types of matches could give Tufts the push it needs to make the run for a NESCAC championship or NCAA tournament berth.

"We believe we can win every match we play, so that's where we start when we plan out our road map for where we want the season to go," Jacobson said. "If we play well and continue to work hard, this team has the potential to compete and beat the best teams in the nation. We'd love to beat our seeding at NESCACs and earn our spot in the NCAA tournament, but we will take it one day at a time and just try to improve every time we step out on the court."

“I think they all know they can do it," Gregor said. "They all want it, and if we’re in the exact same spot next spring as we were this past spring, I feel like we’ve got the team that will win those matches now.”