Hopkins tennis has kept its momentum rolling on through another week. Both the men's and women's teams racked up another two wins, rolling over teams from Franklin & Marshall College and Bryn Mawr in shutout victories. The men's and women's teams from Washington College suffered similar fates, falling to the Blue Jays in near-shutout losses.
The men's team is currently ranked No. 21 in the nation, and this most recent pair of successes puts them on an eight-match winning streak.
First on the slate for the men was Washington, who fell to Hopkins 8-1. Washington suffered from the loss of their top player, another strike against what until the past two years has been the best tennis program in the Centennial Conference.
"Washington was always the team to beat in the conference," head coach Chuck Willenborg said.
The men then squared off against Franklin & Marshall College, hailing from Lancaster, Pa. The Diplomats, though, were not so well received, and probably left wishing for a sanction to be slapped on future Hopkins tennis match-ups. And for good reason: they also left on the receiving end of a 9-0 drubbing.
The match started out strong with Hopkins' doubles performing well. Out of the three doubles matches played, the Jays secured wins in, well, three. Junior captain Rafael Roberti and his doubles partner junior Matt Naftilan set the bar high from the start, with their fourth straight win and a score of 8-1. In singles play, freshman David Maldow also continued his dominance, dropping only a single game in his match against Franklin & Marshall's first singles player, Benjamin Michelman. From there, the second and third doubles teams and the singles players all picked up their own wins, pushing Hopkins to its sound victory.
Maldow's victory over F & M's Michelman -- his 15th win of the season -- set a new record for single-season wins. The previous record of 14 was formerly held by seven different players.
But the women's team was not to be outdone. The Lady Jays kept up their high-caliber profile with triumphs over Bryn Mawr and Washington Colleges, yet also sustained a deflating defeat by Mary Washington. The win over Washington on April 10 was a showcase of Blue Jay talent. Hopkins enjoyed a string of wins from sophomore Brittany Matava, freshman Anita Bhamidipati, senior Becky Busch, freshman Amanda Schubert, junior Tanya Gulnik and freshman Ellen Berlinghof. Matava and sophomore Debbie Blass also barely lost a tight match, 7-9, as first doubles partners.
Ranked No. 15 in the country this week, the women's team then moved on to face a tough (and 10th-ranked) Mary Washington team in Fredericksburg, Va. While the ladies from Hopkins managed to come out of doubles play trailing only 2-1, singles play proved to be a tougher beast to tame. The match ended 3-6 in Mary Washington's favor, with singles wins contributed by Matava and Bhamidipati. The loss was assuaged by the fact that Mary Washington has been ranked in the top ten for the duration of the season.
"None of us were too discouraged by that match. We are just excited that we finally are getting the chance to play teams that are ranked so high," Matava said.
Willenborg was also proud of Hopkins's performance. "Even though we lost the match, we really battled back," he said.
Snapping a nine-game winning streak was not an easy thing for the team to swallow, but as shown by their comeback match against Bryn Mawr College just three days later, they put the loss pretty far behind them. The Jays were in tip-top shape for their blowout victory. Singles and doubles entrants alike didn't drop more than one or two games in almost every match, let alone drop an entire set. This performance led to another easy shutout for the women.
