Since The Hoot last published, the Judges’ men’s and women’s tennis teams each played in two matchups. The men’s team played against unranked Franklin Pierce University (FPU) on March 9 and #20 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) on March 16. The women’s team played against #6 Amherst College on March 10 and #34 Colby College on March 16.
In the men’s first match against FPU, the team won 7-2. The Judges won several doubles matches. Dylan Walters ’24 and Pierce Garbett ’27 won their #1 doubles match 8-0, not dropping even one game. Aaron Basye ’24 and Alex Merson ’26 won the #2 match 8-3. Additionally, in the closest doubles match of the day, Huasen Dong ’27 and Harrison Huai ’27 won 8-7 (and 7-1 in the tiebreaker). In singles matches against FPU, Dong won his #3 match easily at 6-0 6-4, while Merson won the #2 spot at 6-1 6-3. Walters won the #1 match too, 2-6 6-1 6-1. At the #4 spot, Garbett won 6-4 6-2. FPU won the other singles matches, taking the #5 and #6 matches from Basye 7-6 (8-6 tiebreaker) 1-6 8-10 (super tiebreaker) and Huai 6-2 3-6 6-10 respectively.
In their second match against RPI, the Judges fell 7-2 while losing the #2 and #1 doubles matches but winning the #3 match. The #2 match was a 8-1 loss, while the #1 team of Garbett and Walters went to a tiebreaker before the Judges lost 7-4. In the #3 match, though, the Judges team of Basye and Huai mounted an 8-6 victory. Singles matches went similarly, with RPI taking the victory in 5 out of 6. Merson did manage to win his #3 match 6-2 6-4, but losses at #1, #2, #4 and #5 buried the Judges’ hopes of a victory for the day.
In the women’s first match against Amherst, the Judges lost 6-3. The Judges managed to win nearly every singles match, with an 8-5 win from Mandy Reyes ’27 and Nancy Zhang ’26 at #2, a 8-7 (7-4) win in a tiebreaker from Chahana Budhbhatti ’27 and Cecilia Denis ’25 at #3, and an unfortunate loss in a close game from Sabrina Loui ’25 and Bhakti Parwani ’25 at #1. The singles matches were each played one spot up by the Judges, due to Rebecca Suarez’ ’26 absence. Amherst won the #4, #5 and #1 matches, but Reyes won the #6 match 6-2 7-6 (8-6). At #2, Zhang lost 6-4 2-6 1-6, and at #3 Lika Bolkvadze lost 6-2 2-6 4-6.
In the women’s second match against Colby, the Judges lost 5-4. The Judges lost one doubles match, the #3 match where Budhbhatti and Denis lost 8-7 (7-2), but won the other two, the #2 match where Reyes and Zhang won 8-2 and the #1 match where Loui and Suarez won 8-6. Colby won the #5 and #6 singles matches, but Brandeis’ Anastasia Sia ’25 took the #4 match 6-2 6-4 and Brandeis’ Lika Bolkvadze ’27 won the #3 match 6-4 6-4. But Colby edged the #2 match from Zhang 7-6 (8-6) 6-2, also taking the #1 match from Budhbhatti 2-6 6-4 6-2.
Next up, the men’s team will travel to Saratoga Springs, New York to face off against Skidmore College. After the completion of their match against Wesleyan yesterday (it happened too late in the day for The Hoot to obtain match information in time for publication), the women’s team will play against Springfield College on March 28.
