Men's Tennis | Jumbos end weekend on high note

The men’s tennis team shook off a 9-0 loss to No. 4 Amherst to cruise past Wesleyan with an 8-1 win over the weekend, playing both matches at home.

After losing to Trinity over spring break and to Amherst on Saturday, Tufts came into its Sunday match against NESCAC-rival Wesleyan in desperate need of a win, as the team hoped to avoid an underwhelming 0-3 start in conference play.

Despite the loss to Amherst, the team drew positive lessons from playing a difficult opponent, and brought those lessons into Sunday’s match against NESCAC rival, Wesleyan.

“We had chances on every court and the way we fought set us up perfectly for our match against Wesleyan,” Zach Ladwig, a senior, said. “We took confidence from competing well against Amherst and never let Wesleyan get any momentum against us.”

The Jumbos also saw their match against the Cardinals as a chance to exact revenge for the Cardinals 5-4 victory last season.

“We always say that we need to try and treat every match with equal importance, but because we lost to [Wesleyan] last year we had that in the back of our minds and wanted to make sure we played our best,” junior co-captain Brian Tan said.

Playing inside due to inclement weather, the Jumbos used their extra motivation to take a quick 2-1 lead in doubles. Tan and sophomore Nikola Telkedzhiev won at No. 1 doubles, 8-4, and senior co-captain Austin Blau and sophomore Nick Cary won at No. 3 doubles, 8-3. Sophomore Rob Jacobson and freshman Brad Wong were unable to complete the sweep, as they lost at No. 2 doubles, 8-6.

However, it was in singles play where Tufts asserted its dominance, winning all six of its matches, with four of the victories coming in just two sets.

The two close three-setters belonged to Telkedzhiev, who won at No. 1 singles 6-3, 6-7(3-7), 11-9, and Ladwig, who won at No. 6 singles 5-7, 6-4, 10-6.

Tan also played a close match, but was able to pull out a 6-4, 7-5 win at No. 4 singles. Jacobson (7-5, 6-1), Blau (6-4, 6-0) and Wong (6-1, 6-2) all won their matches in convincing fashion.

“Clinching the match against Wesleyan this year was an extremely special moment after the 5-4 loss last season,” Jacobson said. “Sticking to the process is going to yield the team big results.”

On Saturday, Tufts was on the other side of the blowout in its 9-0 loss to Amherst.

Saturday saw the doubles portion of the match against Amherst played inside due to inclement weather, but the singles portion began and finished outside on the Voute Courts.

The Lord Jeffs took an early lead by going up 3-0 in doubles play. Telkedzhiev and Tan gave Amherst its toughest test in double play, as the duo lost by a score of 8-6. Although the Jumbos were not able to pull out any wins in the singles portion, the matches were a lot closer than the score indicated.

Freshman Kevin Kelly was the one Jumbo to push his Lord Jeff opponent to three sets, as Kelly won the second set before eventually falling, 6-3, 3-6, (4-10).

“Coming off Amherst was tough, but we knew that we played well and had competitive matches that weren’t necessarily displayed by the score,” Blau said.

Ladwig noted that the match against Amherst, while a loss, was a great display of the level of competitiveness that the team hopes to bring this year to the courts.

“Our match was definitely challenging since they are one of the top teams in the nation,” he said. “However, I’ve been on the team for four years and have never seen a Tufts team compete as strongly against Amherst as we did this year.”

At the end of the weekend, the Jumbos had moved to 4-3 on the season and 1-2 in the NESCAC, but look to be playing stronger tennis as a team as they move into the middle of their season.

“We created an environment where we were all just bouncing positive energy off of one another, which was a very cool thing to be apart of,” Jacobson said. “That made a huge difference for us.”