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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Men’s tennis dominates on home court

The men’s tennis team demonstrated yet again why it’s deserving of the number one spot in the country over the weekend with two dominant performances over Skidmore (8-7) and tenth-ranked Williams (8-3, 3-2 in NESCAC). With the pair of wins the Panthers improved to 16-1 (6-0) on the season and have now won 67 straight matches at home. Andy Peters ’11 headlined the weekend with four wins over the weekend, two of which were against ranked opponents.
Saturday Peters and first year Brantner Jones ’14 defeated the fifth-ranked doubles team in the nation from Skidmore College 9-8 in a tightly contested match. The 21st-ranked team of Peters and Jones defeated Spencer Cheng and Jimmy Sherpa, improving their doubles record to 9-1 on the season.
Peters and Jones also recorded singles victories over Skidmore. The Senior tri-captain downed the Thoroughbreds’ Luke Granger 6-3, 6-0 in the top singles position and Jones defeated Alex Fromson 6-4, 6-2 in the fifth singles match.
The Panthers won all three doubles matches against the Thoroughbreds, dropping only the second singles match as Oliver Loutsenko of Skidmore edged the Panthers Zach Bruchmiller ’14 6-4, 6-4. The loss marked the only two sets that the Panthers lost in an 8-1 victory.
Despite the loss on Saturday, Bruchmiller played a key role in the Panthers win on Saturday against Williams. The Panthers comfortably defeated the tenth-ranked team in the country 7-2 as Peters and Bruchmiller starred. Bruchmiller, a first year from San Antonio, defeated Matt Micheli of Williams, the 31st-ranked singles player 7-5, 7-5.
“Williams is obviously one of our conference rivals and it is nice to get a win over them because it shows the depth of our line-up,” said tri-captain Andy Peters. “This is one of the most complete teams that I have ever played on. We really have no holes; everybody competes hard and knows how to win.”
The number one singles match featured one of the season’s best matchups as tenth-ranked Andy Peters faced the number two singles player in the country, Felix Sun. Saturday marked the third time Peters and Sun have faced one another with Peters leading the series 1-0 as their second match wasn’t finished. Peters held the upper hand again, defeating Sun 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
“I served really well,” Peters said. “He does a good job at making you feel uncomfortable out on the court. He doesn’t give you a good rhythm and he makes a lot of balls. Coming into the match, I knew it was going to be tough, and I tried to weather the storm and capitalize on big points.”

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The rest of the Panthers followed suit. Middlebury once again swept all three doubles matches and won four of their six singles matches. Nearly all of the singles matches were close as four were decided either in the third set or by ten point tiebreakers.  The Panthers came up with clutch performances, winning three of the four.
Both Alec Parower ’13 and Brantner Jones came from down a set to defeat their opponents. Parower beat the Ephs fourth singles player Zach Weiss 4-6, 7-6, 10-4 (tiebreak) and Jones roared back after dropping the first set to stun Dylan Page 5-7, 6-1, 6-3 in the sixth singles match.
The Panthers also faced stronger competition from the Williams doubles teams. Peters and Jones edged the Ephs number one team of Bryan Chow and Matt Micheli 8-6 and Spencer Lunghino ’13 and David Farah ’12 squeaked out a 9-7 win in the third doubles match. Only the second doubles team of Mike Malhame and Derrick Angle won comfortably as they rolled by the Ephs Trey Meyer and Felix Sun 8-2.
Andy Peters highlighted their match as a turning point for the other doubles teams. “Michael Malhame and Derrick Angle had a very decisive win in the number two doubles match which gave tremendous momentum to the other doubles teams,” he said.
The Panthers hope to carry over their momentum to their showdown at fourth-ranked Amherst this weekend. The Lord Jeffs are an impressive 28-1 (7-0 in NESCAC) this season.
Despite the magnitude of the match, Peters downplayed the importance of beating Amherst. “The goal is to improve, he said. “We don’t really have any result-oriented expectations, such as winning or losing. We have put in the hard work and take care of the little things. I expect us to compete hard for every point and to leave everything on the court. Those have always been the expectations of this program, and that is the way we approach every match.”
Result driven or not, the Panthers want to win this one.


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