Sports
Young tennis players display promising skills in fall season openers
By Erich Wohl ’17
September 22, 2016
Tags sports
The men’s tennis team opened up their season well last weekend, going 10-6 in singles play as well as 5-3 in doubles at Union College’s Dutchmen Invitational. This matchup was the first of the season for many of Hamilton’s returners.
Contributions came across the board from upperclassmen and first-years alike, all of whom performed well. Jonathan Cohen ’17 picked up four wins for the Continentals, going 2-0 in both the singles and doubles play. Cohen is the Continental’s leading returner with 10 doubles wins. He has a career doubles record of 27-17 and has won 33 career singles matches. Cohen’s partner Alex Streich ’18 was 4-0 on the day. Sam Farber ’20 also performed well, going 3-1. Matt Haas ’19 and Andrew Wei ’20 were undefeated in singles play, showing strong depth for the Continentals.
The Continentals play at Le Moyne next on Sept. 22. Over spring break, the Continentals will travel to tournaments in Orlando, F.L., as well as compete in conference against other NESCAC schools. As is the case for many sports, the NESCAC is the strongest conference in Division III tennis, as both 2016 NCAA championship finalists were NESCAC programs. Four different NESCAC schools have won a total of nine NCAA men’s tennis team titles since 1999.
The Women’s team also performed well in their season debut. Despite the fact that their original season opener, which was to take place on Sept. 14, was cancelled due to weather, the Continentals did not seem out of practice. The women won their matches against St. Lawrence University and SUNY Geneseo, sweeping Geneseo with a 9-0 performance in match play and winning 7-2 against St. Lawrence University. On day two of the tournament, Hamilton won 7-2 against Union College.
The sophomore class led the charge for the Continentals with Jane Heffer ’19 going 6-0 overall: three of Heffer’s wins came in singles and three came in doubles with the aid of partner Lindsay Jadow ’19. Samantha Weeks ’19 finished the day strongly with five wins. The Continentals were also helped by senior leadership in Claire Keyte ’17 and Winnie Tang ’17. The two competed in both singles and doubles going 4-2 and 5-2 respectively. Both players are on the cusp of acquiring multiple Hamilton records in their final year. Iona Forrester ’20 and Claudia Morse ’19 also aided the Continentals by going 2-1 in match play.
The Continentals have a strong outlook for the season after having one of the best years in program history last year. The Continentals won a team-record of 15 matches and ended up with a 15-5 overall record. The Hamilton women broke into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national rankings for the first time in program history and ended up ranked 17th by the ITA in the Northeast Region at the end of the spring season. The women’s team will join the men for their next competition at Le Moyne on Sept. 22.