Team Fall GPA

The Men's Tennis Team ended the Fall semester with a whopping 3.404 team GPA! This means that once again I'll be stringing everyone rackets this semester. As an FYI I have a standing arrangement with the team that if they maintain a team 3.2 average I'll be the team stringer. Two weeks into the season and already burned through 2 reels of string!

If you see anyone members of the team make sure to congratulation them on their great effort in the classroom.

First Matches!

Whitman tennis is off and running! Over the weekend the LCSC team was gracious enough to play twice: once against our A team and again against the B team. We followed those two matches with a match against DI Idaho. Needless to say it was a busy Saturday of play!

LCSC has always presented challenges for our team. In fact in 10+ years of coaching at Whitman we have only beaten LCSC once. I stopped keeping track but I'm pretty sure we are 1 and 15 vs the Warriors. Hats off to Coach Fong who has built one of the top NAIA programs in the nation. Not only are his players true Warriors on the court they are gentleman both on and off the court.

For tennis fans, the Whitman A team vs LCSC was the best show in town. In fact this was probably the most exciting match I have been a part of. We started off strong winning the doubles point (we played DI rules) as the Brothers Solomon defeated the LCSC team 8-5 and Nadeem/Jake rallied from a 4-1 deficit to post a 8-5 win. At #3 doubles LCSC defeated Christoph/Etienne 8-2.

In singles Matt continue his strong play winning at #1 6-4, 6-4. Matt showed great maturity winning the first set on his fourth set point. I worried he was going to lose his focus after failing to convert on a couple of set points when serving at 5-4. To Matt's credit he was able to shrug off his disappointment and close out the set. In the second set Matt was down 1-4 before rallying to win 5 straight games.

At #2 singles, new Whittie Daniel Solomon had a great match against a tough LCSC opponent. Daniel proved to be a tough competitor battling back from breaks in each set (2 breaks in the second set). However, in the end his opponents penetrating groundstrokes and big serve were a bit much and Daniel went down 7-5, 7-5.

At #3 singles Etienne got his first exposure to intercollegiate matches losing to the versatile LCSC player 6-2, 6-4. Too ET's credit he never hung his head even while being outplayed and was able to come back from a break down to even the second set. In the end his LCSC opponent had a bit too much experience and variety.

LCSC has four indoor courts and since the Warrior #4 player was in class we put on #5 singles in the first rotation of singles matches. Jake showed some rust in the first set of his match but rallied to win 2-6, 7-5, 10-6. Certainly nice to see Jake bounce back from a nasty stomach virus that him in the hospital for part of the semester break.

After the first round of singles we had a narrow 3-2 lead needing only 1 more win to clinch the match. At #4 Chris "Chras" Bailey had a thrilling match but lost to LCSC's lone senior player 7-6, 6-4. With the match tied at 3-3 it came down to #6 singles where Dan was locked in a 3rd set match breaker. In the breaker the momentum swung both ways. Early in the breaker Dan was up a mini-break but couldn't convert. Later in the breaker Dan saved several match points. In the end the LCSC player was able to fight his way to a 6-3, 4-6, 14-12 victory to clinch the match.

It was too bad any player or team had to lose in this epic battle.

Sorry but time is running is short and I need to get vans back this morning. Below are the results of the Idaho match and Team B vs LCSC

Whitman (A) vs LCSC
Doubles
1. Solomon's def Cedric Dufour/Kevin Lee 8-5
2. Nadeem/Jake def Seabstian Kuhn/Jonathan Berhane 8-5
3. ET/Christoph lost Arslan Mermut/Oliver Stone 8-2
Singles
1. Matt def Stone 6-4, 6-4
2. Daniel lost Dufour 7-5, 7-5
3. ET lost Lee 6-2, 6-4
4. Chris lost Ali Faris 7-6 (5), 6-4
5. Jake def Kuhn 2-6, 7-5, 10-6
6. Dan lost Mermut 6-3, 4-6, 14-12

Whitman (B) vs LCSC
Doubles
1. Chris Bailey/Robert Rye lost Dufour/Lee 8-3
2. Jasper Follows/Justin Hayashi def Mermut/Stone 8-3
3. David Deming/Dan Wilson def Kuhn/Faris 8-3
Singles
1. Christoph lost Dufour 6-3, 6-0
2. Jasper lost Stone 6-2, 6-1
3. David lost Faris 6-4, 6-1
4. Justin def Lee 6-2, 6-3
5. Nadeem lost Kuhn 6-3, 4-6, 10-6
6. Quin Miller lost Mermut 7-6, 6-4

Whitman vs Idaho
Doubles
1. Solomon's def Andrew Dobbs/Potapken 8-3
2. Nadeem/Jake lost Rob Chalkley/Stanislav Glukhov 8-4
3. ET/Christoph lost Tim Huynh/McDonald 8-4
Singles
1. Matt lost Potapken 6-1, 6-2
2. Daniel Lost Glukhov 6-1, 6-0
3. ET lost Chalkley 6-2, 6-2
4. Chris lost Huynh 6-4, 6-3
5. Dan lost Dobbs 7-6, 6-7, 10-2
6. Justin lost McDonald 6-3, 6-4

Day 2 of the ITA Small College Championships

It was a tough day for Matt and Etienne losing 6-2, 6-2 to the top team from Middlebury. The Middlebury duo came out strong and played very solid doubles the entire match. It is easy to see why Middlebury is consistently one of the top NCAA III programs in the nation. Next up for Matt and ET is the #1 team from Claremont who lost in a tight match-breaker to the tournaments #1 seeds.

ITA Update

Hello from the deep South. Yesterday was the opening day of the ITA Small College Championships sponsored by USTA and Outback steak house in Mobile, AL. Yesterday was the play-in match between PNW and TX. The winner of these play-in matches advance to the final eight and are guaranteed 3 more matches.

Sophomore Matt Solomon opened the day with a tough 6-4, 6-4 loss to Trinity #1 Oliver Gaines. Hats off to the Gaines -- he played well and served incredibly well the entire match. In fact at one point he bombed in 14 straight serves (yes I was counting) never giving Matt a whiff to break serve. End the end Gaines had a bit too much experience and was able to close out the match. For reference last year Gaines played #1 for the 6th ranked Trinity team.

In doubles Matt and Etienne showed a lot of poise coming back from an early break in the first set. It is strange how momentum works in sports and I sometimes this is no more evident than in college doubles. After being down a break 3-2 in the first Matt and ET fought back and leveled the match at 4-4. At 4-4 ET served a great game overcoming 3 huge winners (two off of returns) by the Trinity team to hold for a 5-4 lead. At 5-4 ET and Matt played a solid return game and finally won the set on their 3rd set point. At this point the Trinity team got down on themselves and the Whitties races out to a 4-0 lead (winning 6 straight games). In that set Matt and ET were broke once but were able to take the second set 6-3.

This afternoon Matt and ET faces the #1 team from highly ranked Middlebury. Those that want to keep abreast of all the draws can do so at the official tournament webpage

ITA Wrap Up

Things are certainly looking up for the Whitman netters. The ITA Regional tournament wrapped up with 4 Whitman singles players in the semi's and 2 Whitman doubles teams in the finals.

Both the singles semi-finals were amazing battles that lasted well over three hours. In semi #1 Freshman Chris Bailey defeated Sophomore Jake Cappel 6-4 in the 3rd set. And in semi #2 Sophomore Matt Solomon defeated Freshman Etienne Moshevich 7-5 in the 3rd. In the singles finals Matt defeated Chris 7-5, 6-2. The doubles final was another incredibly close match with Matt/Etienne narrowly defeating Jake/Nadeem 9-8.

Obviously this was a special weekend for Whitman tennis as we placed 12 players into the final 16, 7 players into the final 8 and 4 players into the semi's. In fact, in the singles draw only one person lost to a non Whitman player! This is an amazing accomplishment since the NWC conference is much stronger than in previous years.

Matt (singles) and Matt/Etienne (doubles) will now represent the PNW region at the ITA Small College championship Oct 10-14 in Mobile, AL.

Here is a link to some pictures from the weekend.

WOW!

The good (great) fortunate of the Missionary Netters continued through the second day of the PNW/ITA Regional Tournament. Going into the 2nd day of the tournament we had placed 12 guys into the final 16. On Saturday we placed 7 into the final 8 and 4 into the final 4! Our good fortunate doesn't stop there as we also have 2 doubles teams in the final!

Here are the results from Saturday
Round of 16
Chris Bailey (FR) defeated #1 seed Kevin Floyd (#1 PLU) 6-3, 6-2
Jake Cappel (SO) defeated #9 seed Mike Manser (#3 PLU) 7-5, 6-1
ET Moshevic (FR) defeated #14 seed Nick Ruess (Linfield) 6-3, 6-3
Christoph Fuchs (JR) lost to #3 seed Justin Larimore (#2 PLU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3
Matt Solomon (SO) defeated teammate Robert Rye (SR)
Jasper Follows (SO) defeated teammate David Deming (SO)
Quin Miller (FR) defeated teammate Dan Wilson (SO)
Nadeem Kassam (SO) defeated teammate Justin Hayashi (JR)
Round of 8
Bailey defeated Follows
Cappel defeated Miller
Moshevic defeated Larimore 6-2, 7-6
Solomon defeated Kassam

In doubles Matt/ET defeated the #1 team from Willamette 8-5 and the #1 team from Linfield 8-5 to make the finals. Meanwhile Jake/Nadeem defeated a Linfield team 8-2 and the #2 seeds Larimore/Peterson (#1 PLU) 8-3.

Singles starts at 9am today with:
Jake vs Chris
Matt vs ET

The doubles finals will follow the singles final with Matt/ET vs Jake/Nadeem

ITA Regionals

What a great day to be a Missionary! Yesterday was the first day of the PNW/ITA Regional Tournament at Linfield College. This event is somewhat unique in college tennis in that all the players are thrown into one large draw and they duke it out regardless of position on a team. This isa great opportunity for guys lower on a team's ladder to showcase their skills. Just let me say that ALL the Whitman guys made the most of this opportunity. We were fortunate enough to get 12 players into the 64 draw and going into the round of 16 all 12 Whitties are still playing! That is right, 12 of the last 16 players in the draw are from Whitman!

Highlights from day one include:
Jasper Follows defeating the #5 seed (#1 from Linfield) 10-5 in a third set breaker
Nadeem Kassam defeating a very good #6 seed (#1 from Willamette) 10-4 in a third set breaker
Christoph Fuchs defeated the #9 seed (#1 from Whitworth) and has won both his matches in straight sets
Robert Rye hasn't dropped a set including defeating the #13 seed (#4 from PLU) 6-4, 7-6
Quin Miller rolled through both his matches defeating the #12 seed (#2 from Willamette) 6-3, 6-3
ET Moshevich has only dropped 4 games in 2 matches
David Deming won both his matches including defeating the #16 seed (#2 from Whitworth) 6-3, 6-3
Justin Hayashi gutting his way through 2 tough matches winning 1-6, 7-6 (6), 10-8 and then 6-4, 7-6
Chris Bailey rolled through his first matches and now plays the #1 seed
Matt Solomon played well winning his first two matches 6-0, 6-0 and then 6-0, 6-3
Jake Cappel won his first two matches 6-3, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-2
Dan Wilson motored through his first matches without dropping a set

In doubles we placed three teams into the final eight: Matt/ET, Jake/Nadeem and David/Dan

Todays match-ups are
Chris vs #1 seed Kevin Floyd (PLU)
Jake vs #9 seed Michael Manser (PLU)
Christoph vs #3 seed Matt Larimore (PLU)
ET vs #15 seed Nick Ruess (Linfield)

The rest of the matches are Whitman vs Whitman matches
Jasper vs David
Dan vs Quin
Justin vs Nadeem
Matt vs Robert