Rackets heat up in preparation for L.A. meets

Author: Eri Nosaka

The Middlebury Men's tennis team started their season with a three consecutive wins. On March 12, the defending national champions boasted victories over University of Rochester, Hamilton College and Brandeis University, dropping only one match the entire weekend.

Due to the tennis team's past successes, the wins from this weekend came as no surprise. Although the tennis team might be accustomed to playing better tennis, it appears that everybody played well. Some of the notable players from this weekend were Co-Captain Ari Beilin '06 and George Mayer '07.

Although the opponents from this past weekend were not as competitive as other teams on the west coast or in the NESCAC league, the Panthers continue to attempt to hone their talents and create a cohesive successful team.

"The team chemistry is pretty good this year. It's been a bit of an adjustment losing Steve Hulce '04 and Stu Brown '04 because they were such great leaders, but I think that everyone is stepping up in different ways to try to fill those voids," said Nate Edmunds '06. "I think that last year we were the best team in the country in that we played as a team. If that happens again this year, I think we have a good shot of coming out on top."

During Spring Break, the team will head to California for practice and competition against California teams. They will face Cal.-Lutheran, Vanguard, Chapman, Occidental, UC Santa Cruz and Claremont.

"We are still a little bit rusty and starting from next week we have a pretty tough schedule of matches and so therefore we need to play a little bit better. The teams we will be playing out in California should be pretty tough so this week we really need to practice harder and get our intensity up," commented Panther Co-Captain Alex Meditz '05.

"We should have a couple of easier matches earlier in the week but will be challenged by later matches," continued Meditz. "We hope to get our rankings up a little bit. UC Santa Cruz and Claremont are always good teams. They use different type of courts so they'll have a home court advantage so we won't be too used to it. But hopefully we will come out with some good wins."

The Panthers first match during Spring Break will be against Cal Lutheran on March 21.