MIDDLEBURY, VT – The fifth seeded Williams college men's tennis team (11-9) advanced to the semifinal round of the NESCAC Tournament with a convincing 5-0 win over fourth seeded Tufts University in a match played at Middlebury College.
The Ephs advance to a semifinal match-up versus archrival and top seeded Amherst at 11:00 a.m., which will also be played at Middlebury College.
Back on April 19 when the Ephs traveled to Medford to tangle with Tufts and lost 6-3 it was the Jumbos who swept the three doubles matches, but today the Ephs took the 3-0 lead into singles play with a sweep of the doubles encounters. That April loss to Tufts snapped an Eph 23-match win streak over the Jumbos, which included two NESCAC Tournament wins and an NCAA Tournament victory.
Williams' number two pairing of Jose Raventos and Rohan Shastri dispatched the Jumbo duo of Nick Cary and Benjamin Battle 8-3 to post the first Williams win. At 4-3 Raventos and Shastri won the final four games to record the win.
In a back and forth battle at three doubles the Ephs constructed an 8-6 win with the freshman tandem of Sachi Raghavan and Brian Grodecki putting the second point on the board for Williams with an 8-6 win.
The third result to come in from doubles play was fashioned at number one doubles, where the Eph duo of Brian Astrachan and Alex Schidlovsky led from start to finish to post an 8-6 victory.
Eph head coach Dan Greenberg made a lineup change today and it paid dividends. Greenberg took Brian Astrachan from the three doubles unit and moved him up to number one doubles to team with Alex Schidlovsky, resulting in a freshmen pairing of Raghavan and Grodecki at three doubles.
The Ephs and Jumbos split the singles matches in April, but Tufts prevailed by sweeping the doubles points. Tufts juggled its singles lineup for today's match, moving Rob Jacobson to four singles and dropping Benjamin Battle from four to five.
"I thought our energy and execution was great in doubles today and has improved all week," head Greenberg. "Singles was close on all courts, credit to Tufts, but Shastri and Grodecki did an awesome job of keeping their foot in the gas. The team's fired up for another chance tomorrow."
First off the court in singles play was Eph sophomore Rohan Shastri who delivered a straight set win over Rohan Gupte, 6-3, 6-2, reversing his straight set loss to Gupte in the regular season contest. The win lifted to Ephs to a 4-0 lead and in search of one more win to capture the victory and advance to Saturday's semifinals. However, in the five singles matches still to be determined the Ephs had lost the first set in four of the matches.
Jose Raventos at #1 won his first set versus Nik Telkedziev, but dropped the second set 6-4. Freshman Brian Grodecki at #4 took his first set 7-6 and opened up a 3-0 lead in the second set over Rob Jacobson. Grodecki never let up and posted a 6-0 win in the second set to power the Ephs into tomorrow's semifinal match-up with archrival Amherst at 11:00 a.m.
Williams now leads the all-time series with Tufts 34-8 since they first met back in 1918.
Williams 5, Tufts 0
Doubles
1. Brian Astrachan/Alex Schidlovsky (W) def. Nik Telkedzhiev/Rohan Gupte (T) – 8-6
2. Jose Raventos/Rohan Shastri (W) def. Benjamin Battle/Nick Cary (T) – 8-3
3. Sachi Raghavan/Brian Grodecki (W) def. Zain Ali/Griffin Brockman (T) – 8-6
Singles
1. Jose Raventos (W) vs. Nik Telkedzhiev (T) – 6-2, 4-6, 2-3– DNF
2. Rohan Shastri (W) def. Rohan Gupte – (T) - 6-3, 6-2
3. Alex Schidlovsky (W) vs. Zain Ali (T) – 5-7, 3-4 – DNF
4. Brian Grodecki (W) def. Rob Jacobson (T) – 7-6, 6-0
5. Sachi Raghavan (W) vs. Benjamin Battle (T) – 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 – DNF
6. Howard Weiss (W) vs. Jay Glickman (T) – 2-6, 3-4 –DNF
