UR Men’s and Women’s Tennis (URMT and URWT) traveled to Altamonte Springs, Fla., to partake in the UAA Championship this past weekend to conclude their seasons.
In their first match, the women (13–7) were defeated by top-ranked Emory University (13–5) in the quarterfinals, ending a seven-match winning streak. Emory’s doubles team, which is ranked number one in the nation, defeated UR’s duo of senior Lauren Zickar and sophomore Camila Garcia by a small margin of 8–6.
In the consolation round, freshman Sravya Gudipudi recorded a win for the Yellowjackets against Case Western Reserve University (17–5). The team was defeated 8–1 by the Spartans.
To end their season, the women faced off against NYU (8–5) for seventh place at the tournament. Garcia, along with teammate Zicker, won their doubles match with a score of 8–2. In her singles match, Garcia also topped NYU’s Vanessa Scott 6–4. NYU defeated the Yellowjackets with a final score of 7–2 to conclude the tournament for the women.
The men (9–12) faced top-seeded Emory (17–4), a team also ranked second in the nation, on Friday, in the quarterfinals. The Yellowjackets gave the Eagles a solid fight in the first doubles match, as sophomore Masaru Fujimaki and junior Aaron Mevorach fell narrowly, 9–7, against the nationally ranked team of Scott Rubinstein and James Spaulding.
The pair of freshman Mattias Hartveit and senior Sam Leeman fell, 8–3, to regionally ranked Max Renke and Adrien Bouchet, and junior Andrew Nunno and freshman Tanmay Thakkar fell by the same score to David Omsky and Jonathan Jemison the top-ranked doubles team in the country.
The singles matches weren’t as close, as URMT faced multiple nationally ranked singles players and fell in straight sets in all six matches, never managing more than two games in a set, resulting in an overall 9–0 win by the Eagles.
Things didn’t get much easier on Saturday, as the Yellowjackets faced off against no. 12 Case Western Reserve University (20–6). Doubles play wasn’t quite as close as the day before, as Hartveit and Leeman’s 8–5 loss to the Spartans’ Phillip Gruber and James Fojtasek was the tightest match.
The Yellowjackets did considerably better, however, in singles, forcing two tiebreakers. Fujimaki was edged out 6–4, 0–6, 10–4 by Siddharth Rajupet, and Thakkar fell 3–6, 6–0, 10–6 to Josh Dughi. But that was as close as URMT got to victory on the day as they once again fell, 9–0.
On Sunday, in the 7th place match against no. 31 NYU (10–4). URMT won their first match of the tournament, as Thakkar and Nunno topped Matt DeMichiel and Zeb Zheng 8–6, though NYU took the other two doubles matches. Fujimaki earned the Yellowjackets a singles point by beating Benedict Teoh 6–4, 6–2, but that was the team’s only win in singles as they fell by a 7–2 score.
Ultimately, both teams exhibited strong performances over the course of the season at times, keeping things close against elite talent, but the tough schedule ultimately proved to be too much to overcome against UAA foes. URWT still had a particularly strong season, winning 13 of their 17 games entering the tournament, and the season had plenty of positives.
