Men's Tennis Lands Three in Semifinals

Author: Bob Wainwright

After two straight weekends of extremely competitive match play, the Middlebury men's tennis team traveled north this past Friday for the Bates Invitational, while leaving its top five singles players behind for a well-deserved weekend off. Despite lacking their top players, the team showed incredible depth in pulling off a large number of impressive wins and a very respectable showing.
In singles action, three Middlebury players made it to the semifinals — Matt Rales '06 in the "C" draw and Scott Palmer '05 and Bob Wainwright '03 in the "D" draw. Maryland native Rales breezed through his first two matches, winning 6-2, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-4, respectively. He then met a very tough opponent in John Posey from Bowdoin in the semis. And although Rales managed to close a very tight first set, Posey ended up on top, 5-7, 6-0, (10-2). Michael DiRaimondo '05 also played in the "C" draw and pulled out an incredible opening match against Bates in a super tie-breaker, despite being down match point at times. He lost in the quarterfinals.
In the "D" draw, Palmer played brilliantly in the first-round, winning 6-4, 6-0. In the quarterfinals, he was able to play his way back into a match after losing the first set 6-4. Palmer took the second set 6-4 and then went on to win the super tie-breaker, 10-6. In the semifinals, Palmer fell to Bowdoin, 6-3, 6-0. Wainwright, after earning a bye in the first round, won his quarterfinal match against Connecticut College, 6-4, 7-5. The following day, he played a tough match against Bowdoin as well, but fell short of winning, 6-4, 7-5.
Co-captain Stu Brown '04 and sophomore Alex Meditz represented Middlebury in the "A" draw and each won his first-round match. After dropping the first set, 2-6, to Brandeis, Brown called upon one of his trademark rallies, winning the second 7-6 (7-1), and the super-breaker, 10-4. In the quarterfinals, Brown played Alex MacDonald from Bates and lost 6-3, 6-3. Meditz, meanwhile, won his first match in straight sets before falling to the eventual champion from Bowdoin in the quarters. In the "B" draw, Andrew Jacobi '05 lost to Tufts in the first-round 6-4, 6-2. First-year Jeff Oldenburg made it one round further before falling to the eventual champion.
In doubles action, the team of Palmer and Wainwright made it to the semi-finals of the "B" draw before losing in a tight match against Bates, 9-7. In the first-round, Wainwright and Palmer feasted off of weak serves from their Colby opponents, en route to an 8-3 trouncing. In the semifinals against Bates, the team played stronger tennis, but it simply was not enough. Rales and Meditz played a different Bates team in their first round, but suffered a similar fate, losing 8-6.
In the "A" draw, Brown, the Canadian, and Oldenburg played extremely well in an 8-6 win over Brandeis. Against Bowdoin, however, they did not fare quite so well, losing 8-5. Jacobi and DiRaimondo, who form a doubles team that may have sprung from the fact that the players are roommates this year, won their first-round match against Bates, 8-5. They then lost to the number-one Bates doubles team in the quarterfinals, 8-4.
The Bates tournament marked the unofficial end to the fall season for the tennis team, and the players will now focus on their off-season training regimen in order to prepare themselves for the all-important spring dual match season, which begins in February.
If this fall is a sign of things to come, however, there may very well be a changing of the guard ahead. Williams, which has won the previous two national championships, has some stiff competition headed its way.