I love the resilience of our team. Two days ago we suffered our first NCAA III loss at the hands of Chicago. I was a bit worried going into days match that we would be tentative and on our heels. Confidence can be a strange friend -- here today and maybe gone tomorrow...
Lucky for us we had a day off (without traveling) after our matches against Chicago and St Thomas. We have played about 11 matches in the last 11 days and everyone's body needed the rest.
Before the match we talked about the importance of seizing the lead in doubles. All week we have been behind in all the doubles. Even the doubles matches we have won we have been down early breaks. Today was a much better effort in doubles. We are getting close but still have room for improvement. The new (at least new for this trip) #3 team of Nadeem Kassam and Jake Cappel started us off with a two-break 3-0 lead. Dan and Justin broke early and raced to an 8-2 win. At #1 Quin and Christoph were up a break 6-4. Great start for us! However the #3 Carleton team picked up play and leveled the match at 6-6. Nadeem and Jake showed their experience breaking and then serving out the match for an 8-6 victory. Quin and Christoph are having their streaks of brilliance, but they just can't seem to keep their focus. After being up 4-6 (one break) they let some opportunities slip away and the Carleton team won 4 straight games winning 8-6. Obviously it was disappointing to let #1 doubles slip through our hands, but a 2-1 lead is better than being down 1-2 (like against Chicago and Colby).
In singles Adriel continued his strong play. Against Chicago Adriel dropped the first set 0-6 before winning 6-1, 6-3. Today he continued where he left off winning 6-0, 6-1. That is four great sets in a row. His quick victory gave us a 3-1 lead. Nadeem struggled early in his match but figured out a good game plan (with a little help) and after being down 2-3 ran away with a 6-3, 6-2 victory. Unfortunately for Chris he ran into a buzzsaw, dropping his singles matches. Team score is now 4-2. Last post I wrote about Dan's great competitive spirit. Today he didn't disappoint. After winning the first set 6-2 he had two changes to serve out the match in the 2nd. His opponent great some great tennis, dipping balls whenever Dan came to the net and hitting outright winners from behind the baseline. Even though Dan lost the 2nd set in a tiebreak he roared back in the 3rd set super tie-breaker winning 10-7. His gutsy performance sealed the team match 5-2. Jake added some dessert to our victory with a solid 6-3, 6-1 victory at #4. At #1 ET was outplayed by Carleton's Ben Guzick. Keep your eyes on this young man. He is a tremendous competitor and player. I fully expect him to make some waves on the national level in the near future (if not this year).
Tomorrow we play Oberlin at 8:30am and #18 Depauw at 12:30pm. The afternoon match should be a good match. Yesterday Depauw defeated Carleton 5-4. I'll try to update the match via twitter.
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