The Colonials arrived at the 2014 ECAC Division I Men’s Tennis Indoor Championship Friday afternoon, with fresh hopes that last weekend’s win against St. John’s would ignite their season’s lackluster start.
By Sunday morning however, GW had been swept in both tournament matches against hosting-No. 63 Dartmouth and No. 55 Princeton, dropping their season record to 1-4.
An inability to gain momentum with the doubles point led to multiple unfinished singles matches over weekend play.
“Losing hurts, but I’m not completely upset with how we’re competing,” junior Francisco Dias said. “A lot of these tight matches eventually are going to start going our way.”
Throughout this season, the team has done a remarkable job hiding its lack of depth. However, fielding a team of 10 compared to 12 for Dartmouth (8-1), Friday’s matchup against the Big Green exposed the team’s most obvious weakness.
In doubles, the No. 1 duo of Dias and freshman Julius Tverijonas continued their season-long dominance against Dartmouth’s Cameron Ghorbani and Brendan Tannenbaum winning the match 6-2. Dartmouth would ultimately gain the doubles point, though, with the Colonials’ No. 2 duo – senior Nikita Fomin and sophomore Danil Zelenkov – and No. 3 duo – seniors Viktor Svensson and Ulrik Thompsen – coming up short 6-2 and 6-4, respectively.
With the initial momentum lost, the Colonials play in singles looked to come up just short in every match. Dartmouth was first to victory in three-straight singles matches, handing them the remaining three points necessary for the win.
“Our energy needs to be at a level that is compatible with our talent and our effort,” Dias said.
After a Saturday reprieve from action, GW returned Sunday morning against a 5-1 Princeton team. In some respects, this match looked like a repeat of Friday with the same 0-4 end result, despite another doubles win from Tverijonas and Dias. However, in the end the often-overlooked areas of the game decided the match.
Although head coach Greg Munoz raved that “today’s [Sunday’s] performance was the best I’ve seen the team [play],” their energy was just not enough in overcoming the “inches” that determined the match.
“Once we get that first [ranked] win we’ll feel good and the fact that we haven’t lost to any unranked opponents, we think that things are moving in the right direction.”
The Colonials defeated four ranked squads last year, and after going winless thus far, are tabbed to face only four more this season.
Next on the schedule for the men’s tennis team is an 11:00 a.m. matchup against Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia on Feb. 23.
