Young guns serve up success at home invite

Author: Robert de Picciotto

The men's tennis team hosted six other schools, including NESCAC foes Bowdoin, Bates, Colby and Trinity, at the Middlebury Invitational tournament over the weekend and saw mixed results. In doubles competition, Middlebury excelled - so much so that the Flight A finals was a Middlebury vs. Middlebury match. Four different singles players reached the semifinals of their respective flights, but none could advance to the finals.

For a program with such a winning tradition, expectations are always high. The Panther's have won a National Championship title and earned two National runners-up trophies in the last four seasons.

However, after graduating all three captains last season, the team is composed primarily of young players. These promising individuals will look to Fil Marinkovic '08 and Conrad Olson '09 for upper classmen guidance and leadership. Marinkovic, the Canadian phenom and lone senior on the team, is ready for his new role and excited about the season ahead.

"It's tough to gauge performance this early in the season," said Marinkovic. "Especially when the three players that had been instrumental to our team's success are no longer present to set the standard." Nonetheless, he is also optimistic about the future.

"The effort displayed thus far by the younger members of the team," said Marinkovic. "Has shown that they understand it will take a lot of hard work to reproduce past results, and that we are all fully up to the challenge."

Indeed, head coach Dave Schwarz has brought in another exceptional recruiting class, and even though the team is still young, they are confidently serving up aces on the court. Mirroring the change many of the courts on the professional circuit have undergone, the new blue surface provided an ideal playing surface.

It was not just the courts that were blue in the Flight A doubles final, as Marinkovic teamed up with Andrew Thomson '10 to beat classmates Chris Mason '09 and Andrew Lee '09 8-3.

In singles play, Schwarz entered Marinkovic, Thomson, and Lee into the 'A' division competition. Middlebury had decent success early in the 'A' flight before eventual winner, Bowdoin's Garret Gates ousted Marinkovic and Thomson. Gates took down Marinkovic in the quarterfinals then followed that by eliminating Thomson in the semifinals.

In 'B' singles, Peter Odell reached the finals without dropping a set, before bowing out to the champion in a tough three-set battle.

The results were not indicative of the entire weekend, as noted by Eliot Jia '10.

"[The invitational] was a fun event, since we were the hosts, and we got to check out some of the NESCAC competition," said Jia. "We did lose some very tight matches in tiebreakers, and a lot of them could have gone either way. Overall, we are playing well as a team, and hope to continue our success next weekend at the ITA tournament."

The Middlebury Invitational results show a lot of promise, with the Panthers showcasing several players on Championship Sunday.

The fall tennis season merely features invitational and regional tournaments that act as tune-up events for the spring season of NESCAC divisional play.

Over the next five months, Schwarz's young players will have time to practice and gain valuable on-court experience on the way to competing for another National Championship in the spring of 2008.