The Brandeis men’s and women’s tennis teams traveled to Southern California for their annual spring break competition trip against several teams including Caltech and College of Redlands. The women’s team finished with a 3-1 winning record for the week, only dropping two matches within their victories, but fell 0-9 to Claremont. The men faced off against Point Loma, Cal Lutheran, Occidental and Pomona-Pitzer and finished the week off with a 3-1 winning record as well. The men only dropped two matches within their victories, but fell to Pomona-Pitzer 4-5. The women are currently ranked #19 in the nation and the men #20 in the nation.
The women’s team started off the week strong with a clean sweep of #40-rated Caltech 9-0. The day started off with a sweep of all three doubles matches. At the first seat, Sabrina Ross Neergaard ’20 and Haley Cohen ’18 earned an 8-3 victory. In the second seat, Olivia Leavitt ’19 and Keren Khromchenko ’21 earned their victory with an 8-3 as well. Lauren Bersch ’21 and Micheal Lehat ’19 earned the victory with an 8-2 win in the third seat. In the singles matches, the Judges didn’t hold anything back. In the fifth seat, Bertsch earned the critical fifth point with 6-0 and 6-1 victories. Leavitt won all 12 games at number four, 6-0, 6-0. Khromchenko finished the day with a victory for the third seat, 6-1, 6-1. As the team entered into the second wave of matches, Rachel Zubirnsky ’21 earned a 7-5 and 6-2 victory in the sixth seat. Cohen came from behind with a set down, 2-6, 6-0, 10-8 to earn her the win in the second seat. Neergaard finished the sweep with her win at number one with scores of 7-5, 2-6, 10-7.
Two days later the women faced Cal Lutheran. They took home the second win of the trip with an 8-1 victory over the Kingsman. With a sweep of the doubles matches, the Judges also took first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth in the single matches. The team traveled to Redlands, California for their third match of the week and continued the streak with a 7-2 over the ranked #35 Redlands. In the doubles match, the Judges took third and second but failed to reach a first seat. Cohen and Bertsch took their victory with a second of 8-4 and Lehat and Khromchenko with a score of 8-3. In the singles matches, the Judges took first, second and third to finish off strong and secure victory for the Judges. The Judges feel two days later to ranked #3 Claremont-M-S.
The men had a similar result, winning the first three of four matches of the week. They started off the week against Division II Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego, Cal.. In the doubles matches, Nikhil Das ’21 and Rajan Vohra ’21 earned the teams first victory of the day at number three with a score of 8-5. Tyler Ng ’20 and Jackson Kogan ’19 earned their victory with a second of 8-7 in the second seat. David Aizenberg ’20 and Anupreeth Coramutla ’20 finished the sweep for the Judges with their victory in the first seat with a score of 8-7. In the singles matches, the Judges took victories in the fourth, fifth, and sixth spots to take home the victory. Two days later, the Judges traveled to Thousand Oaks to take on Cal Lutheran. They started out strong with two of the three victories in the doubles matches. Aizenberg and Coramutla took another victory with a score of 8-4. Ng and Kogan earned the second victory for the Judges with a score of 8-6 in the second seat. The Judges then put their foot on the gas and swept the singles matches winning the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth seats.
Next up was Occidental College and the Judges continued their streak with an 8-1 win. They swept the doubles matches to start off the day with a 3-0 lead. Senior Ethan Saal ’18 picked up his first in the spring season with a 6-2, 6-1 victory. Billy Wilson ’18 also earned a win for a hometown crowd with a score of 6-3, 6-0. Ben Wolfe ’20 went to the third set for a super-tiebreaker earning a 7-6, 7-4, 1-6, 10-5 win. To close out their matches in California, the Judges faced #12 Pomona-Pitzer. They opened the match strong to sweep the doubles matches again. The number one seat team for the Judges, Coramutla and Aizenberg, are now the ninth-ranked team in Division III with a team record of 8-4.
Since returning to Waltham after the February break, the men competed against ranked #19 Bates College at Brandeis. Aizenberg and Coramutla suffered their first lost in a long time in the first seat of the doubles match. Pairs Kogan and Ng and Das and Vohra earned Brandeis’ first two point to help take the lead against Bates in the doubles second and third seat. Brandeis then took fourth, fifth, and sixth seats against Bates to clinch the victory. Wolfe secured the victory for the Judges with his hard fought win in the sixth seat. The final match of the day and coming up from behind, Wolfe rallied to win his fourth consecutive three-set match by taking the final two sets 6-2, 6-2.
The women’s team will take on MIT on March 9 and Wellesley the following day. The men’s team returns to the court against Rensselaer on March 9 at home.
