The men’s tennis team opened their fall season at the Middlebury Invitational at Middlebury College in Vermont this past weekend, playing multiple matches on both Saturday and Sunday. The Judges were one of seven teams in the tournament, which had four singles divisions, or flights, and two doubles divisions.

         The pair David Aizenberg ’20 and Anupreeth Coramutla ’21 had the best finish for the Judges, finishing second in the A-Doubles Flight. After defeating Colby 8-3, Aizenberg and Coramutla lost 8-7(4) in the final. In the B Doubles Flight, Ben Wolfe ’20 and rookie Simon Kauppila ’23 reached the semi-final. After winning their first match 8-2, the two upset the second-seeded pairing from Middlebury 8-3.

In the A Singles Flight, Aizenberg cruised to the semi-final, winning his first two matches in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 and 6-2, 6-3. Sophomores Adam Tzeng ’22 and Jeff Chen ’22 each reached the semi-finals in the B Singles Flight as well. Hunter Levine ’23, Nikhil Das ’21 and Kauppila each won their opening singles matches before losing in the quarterfinal.

The Judges are looking to build on last year’s strong campaign, where they were ranked eighth nationally. The men also finished one win shy of the program record at 16-4, in which nine of the wins were against nationally ranked opponents. Finally, the Judges finished second last year at the UAA Championships, highlighted with an upset over number two University of Chicago.

The Judges, however, will be without Wilson/ITA National Division III Coach of the Year Ben Lamanna, who is now the head women’s tennis coach at Bowdoin. The Judges hired former Brandeis assistant coach Pauri Pandian last month in Lamanna’s place. Despite Lamanna’s departure, the Judges are returning all four All-UAA selections from last season. 

The Judges have two more events this fall, at Colby College for the ITA Regionals Sep. 27-29 and the Wallach Invitational at Bates College Oct. 5-6.