CHELSEA WARRENThe Washington University men’s tennis team continued their impressive fall play in the ITA Omni Central Regional Championships. Senior Brian Alvo and sophomore Ari Rosenthal both advanced to the singles semi-finals and lost together in the doubles semi-finals on Sunday. The tournament features individual singles and double tournaments rather than head to head team competition.
The Bears sent five players to the championships, held at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. In addition to Alvo and Rosenthal, William McMahan, Zach Fayne, and Eric Borden competed in singles. McMahan and Fayne were entrants in the doubles tournament as well.
Alvo, who won the tournament two years ago, entered as the top seed and has lived up to his advance billing. After receiving a bye for the first round, Alvo won in dominating fashion over his next opponents including a 6-0, 6-0 dismantling of No. 12 seed Ohio Wesleyan’s Ryan Drew.
While Alvo “took care of business” as usual according to coach Roger Follmer, the coach was most impressed by the play of Rosenthal. Rosenthal won two tough three-set matches in singles before returning to the court to win two doubles matches with Alvo on Sunday. Rosenthal, seeded number ten, defeated the number five seed and first singles player for Kalamazoo Michale Malvitz, and the fourth-ranked seed and top player for Wooster Nilesh Saldanka. Saldanka went 22-2 last season at first singles while earning conference player of the year. Rosenthal and Alvo are on separate sides of the singles draw and could potentially meet in the finals of the tournament. Follmer praised Rosenthal’s performance.
“In all my time at {the University],” Follmer said, “that was the most impressive and gutsiest performance I’ve seen, bar none.”
Later in the day, Rosenthal and Alvo lost a heartbreaker doubles match 12-10 in a tiebreaker against Kenyon. After splitting sets, the duo lost a match tiebreak. Rather than play a third set in doubles, teams square off in a 10 point tiebreaker. Alvo commented on the loss.
“We’ve been working hard in singles and as a result, we’ve been a little bit tired for doubles but we played real hard,” Alvo said, “It was kind of a bittersweet feeling that we got that far in doubles but lost.”
While Alvo and Rosenthal are the only Bears still competing in the tournament, the team received strong performances from all its players. McMahan lost a tough three set match in the third round of singles play to a player now in the semifinals while Fayne and Borden each won a round in the tournament. In doubles play, McMahan and Fayne bowed out to the number two seed from Kenyon in the third round in a match tiebreak. Follmer was pleased with the team’s showing in the tournament and was particularly excited to note that this was the first time the University had two singles players reach this point in the tournament.
“Everyone picked up a win. Collectively, everyone that came here won a match so it was a great experience,” Follmer said, “This is the first time we’ve had two representatives in the semi-finals. No other school has that here.”
When the singles semi-finals and finals are played today, Rosenthal is hoping that he will meet teammate Alvo in the finals. Rosenthal, who played 10 total sets of tennis over the course of the day Sunday cited the conditioning work the team has done as a key factor in his strong performance.
“The conditioning really helped today. I had two three-set battles. I really felt that I was in better shape than my opponents,” Rosenthal said, “We’re really excited for tomorrow. We want an all-Wash U final, so we have some work to do.”
If either Alvo or Rosenthal wins the singles tournament, the winner will be invited to compete in the Small College Championships on October 16-18. The team’s strong performance should also give the team a good chance to receive an invitation to the National Indoors Tournament.
The Regional Championships marks the end of the team’s fall competitive season. The team will return to action Feb. 7 against Southwest Baptist University.