Tennis begins April march to NCAA tourney

Author: Tianze Ma

The ninth-ranked Middlebury men's tennis team took another step towards Division III Nationals with a 7-2 victory over regional foe Bowdoin on Saturday, moving to 5-1 in NESCAC play and 11-4 overall.

The match started in the windy afternoon at the Proctor courts, and the Panthers immediately took the lead by winning two of the three doubles matches over the Polar Bears. Both number-one doubles pair Andrew Thomson '10 and Fil Marinkovic '08 and number-two pair Andrew Lee '10 and Chris Mason '10 managed to defeat their opponents 8-5. The domination continued in the singles with wins by the team's captain Marinkovic, Andrew Peters '11, Rich Bonfiglio '10, Peter Odell '10 and Mason.

At number-one doubles, Andrew Thomson was able to be back out on the court and play fearlessly with his partner Marinkovic, while still recovering from an injury. During spring break Thomson tore his soleus, and was advised to be out for three to six weeks, meaning he could have missed the entire rest of the season. In an effort to return to the team promptly, he went through a recovery-based training program with the help of team trainer Emily Mathews.

"I went to the training room every single day after break," said Thomson, "and heated, iced, massaged, and trained my leg as much as aggressively as I could." It turned out that Thomson has been recovering quite well, as he and his partner carried out an 8-5 win over Bowdoin's number-one pair.

"I was beyond excited to be back on the courts. I feel pure joy every time I play," said Thomson after the match. "It was great to see Andrew back in the line-up," said his partner Marinkovic, captain of the team. "Hopefully we will soon have our line-up at full strength with the most important matches of the season coming up."

"Bowdoin is a very talented team, and they have the potential to beat any team on any given day," said Peters, who beat Bowdoin's number-three single Jamie Neely in a close match on Saturday. Peters was leading a set at 4-1 before the game heated up. He closely dropped the second set 5-7 as the Bowdoin player got tougher. "[Head Coach] Dave [Schwarz] told me to mix up my spins off the ground, aim for bigger targets on my serve, work my opponents forehand, and look for balls to attack on." Having knocked out the Polar Bear in a 10-point tie-breaker with the more aggressive tactics, Peters said he is "much happier that the team was able to beat Bowdoin in such a convincing manner." "I feel that the spirit of the team is very upbeat and very optimistic. We will definitely be serious national-title contenders."

Peters is right: the season is going into its climax. Up next for the Panthers are the last two home games, facing Amherst and the College of New Jersey, before the NESCAC Championship, which will also be hosted at Middlebury the following weekend. The Panthers will carry the momentum from the past weeks into those matches and continue on the march towards nationals. "Our team is as good as it's ever been and we're confident that our abilities will be reflected by our results," concluded Marinkovic.