Men’s tennis opened its fall season at the Bloomsburg Invitational last weekend. Traditionally a three-day event, the tournament was shortened due to rain on Saturday.
Much like the weather conditions, the Leopards saw so-so results as the team won three of five doubles matches and six of 13 singles matches. Two doubles matches and one singles match featuring Lafayette athletes were scheduled for Saturday and did not take place.
Playing as a team in two doubles matches, senior Arman Ganchi and junior Nick McKenzie earned the Leopards some of their much-needed wins.
“Arman and I always play well together,” McKenzie said. “This is our third year as a doubles pair, so we have great chemistry. Our results from the past show that, but we weren’t going out there expecting to play perfectly.”
“It was our first match back and we can only hope to improve,” he added.
Ganchi and McKenzie played two matches together, both against teams from Saint Francis University. The duo split their matches as they lost their first 6-3 but won their next 6-1.
“Playing doubles with Nick was great,” Ganchi said, also emphasizing their chemistry. “Losing the first match didn’t feel great, but we learned a lot from it and bounced back to win the second match against the same team pretty easily.”
In singles play, McKenzie lost a tough first match 6-0 6-4 to Colgate but rebounded to win his second match 6-4 against Kutztown. Ganchi won his only singles match 7-6 (2) 6-1 against Saint Francis University.
Much like Ganchi and McKenzie, junior Jake Magnusson split his two singles matches and won his only doubles match with his partner freshman Owen Studdiford.
“Across the board for the whole team, we all warmed into the tournament,” Magnusson said. “It didn’t help that we missed the first day. We have some more events this fall and we look at these events as really high-level practice matches.”
“The more we play, we’ll progressively get better for the spring season,” he added.
Ganchi echoed that fall tournaments are used for practice and experience, as they do not contribute to the team’s record.
“Everyone fought hard this weekend and will keep doing so throughout the fall so we can play our best in the spring,” he said. “The team is looking strong and I’m really looking forward to the spring season.”
By correcting on-court communication and readjusting to the seasonal routine, the players are confident that improvement is on the way for the spring season and beyond.
“The team is definitely deeper this year,” Magnusson said. “Based on seeing guys at practice and seeing guys compete in this tournament, we’re on track to do better than we did last season.”
Men’s tennis is back in action this weekend at the Bucknell Invitational.