After nearly six months off, the Hopkins men’s tennis team resumed their season this weekend with a rousing 9-0 victory over the Brewers of Vassar College. The Blue Jays had comfortable wins in each of their six singles matches and saw impressive doubles wins by junior-senior tandems of junior Jacob Barnaby and senior Casey Blythe and junior Wareen Elgort and senior Andrew Wang.
College tennis is unlike almost every other NCAA sanctioned sport in that some if its season takes place in the fall and the other part takes place in the spring.
“The fall is our non-traditional season,” said head coach Chuck Willenborg who has brought Hopkins tennis to new heights since taking the reigns seven years ago. “We play in a few individual tournaments and on occasion we will play a duel match. The conference matches and NCAA tournament are played in the spring.
The highlight of the Jays’s fall was their three-day affair at the ITA Southeast Regional where sophomore Andy Hersh advanced to the title games in both singles and doubles where he was coupled with junior Jeff Kamei.
Hersh’s title game appearance marked just the second time in Hopkins history that a Jay was represented in an ITA title game.
Hopkins had just one team match in the fall which came on Oct. 9 in Baltimore against perennial power Amherst College. The Jays fell to the Lordjeffs 7-2. That game, though, is now a distant memory.
“Many things can change from fall to spring,” Coach Willenborg said. “We had one player overseas for a semester in the fall, Jacob Barnaby, who is playing singles and doubles this spring. There is a long break from the fall season to the start of spring and you hope that the players work on the things that we highlighted to improve their game.”
Hopkins headed into this weekend’s match against Vassar ranked 13th in the nation despite losing four-year All American David Madlow from last year’s squad. The face-off was the first of 18 Hopkins will have this spring.
The Jays began the day with their doubles matches. Hersh and Kamei picked up where they left off at the third doubles position against the Brew Crew, winning with relative ease 8-2.
First and second doubles were up next, and both proved to be the Jays’s most challenging duals of the match. In the second doubles position, Elgort and Wang battled Andrew Guzick and Max Willner to end, coming out on top 9-7. Barnaby and Blythe, who were playing first doubles, had a similar confrontation, sneaking by Ben Guzick and John Jasso 9-7 as well to give Hopkins a 3-0 lead heading into singles matches.
Coach Willenborg’s starting singles lineup featured Wang at first, Elgort at second, Hersh at third, Blythe at fourth, Barnaby at fifth and freshman Jeremy Schwartz at sixth. Five of these six matches were decided in straight sets.
One of the more impressive wins on the afternoon was Elgort’s handling of defending ITA Northeast Regional champion Guzick. Elgort dominated by a score of 6-3, 6-1.
“Everyone stepped up and played well. Warren Elgort defeated [a top player] and is undefeated this year in singles and doubles,” said Coach Willenborg.
Schwartz’s spring debut was equally notable, as he stumped Vassar’s Nick Jasso 6-2, 6-0. This performance was hardly a surprise to Coach Willenborg though.
“[He] is one of the best freshmen in the country,” he said.
The closest match of the afternoon was Barnaby’s 7-5 decision to begin his match with Jasso. Barnaby would win the next set 6-2.
Blythe showed incredible resilience in his match. After falling in the first set 1-6, Blythe came all the way back, winning the next two sets 6-2, 6-3.
Although the Jays made it look easy, Vassar is a good team, with several solid players. Like many Hopkins athletic teams, Hopkins likes playing good teams early in the season.
“I like playing the best teams in the country because it helps in finding out more about ourselves in terms of where we are and what we need to work on.” Coach Willenborg said.
Even with the shutout, Willenborg still says his team has some fine-tuning to do.
“We need to continue working on doubles play . . . We have two new teams together and are looking for more cohesion,” he said.
Hopkins next plays Dickinson on March 19.
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