The Wesleyan men’s tennis team opened up the fall season on the right foot, traveling up to Nichols College last Saturday and returning with a 1-0 record following a 6-3 road victory. The Cardinal men played off some early season rust, clinging to a 4-3 lead over the upstart Nichols Bison before Michael Glen ’13 and Donald Kleckner ’13 gave Wesleyan a strong finish in singles. Glen and Kleckner won their matches 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 and 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, respectively.

Captain Garrett Blank ’11 was pleased by Wesleyan’s all-around performance (Blank played a strong singles match to the tune of a 6-0, 6-1 win), especially given some of the unique challenges facing the squad.
“We have a really small team this semester,” he said. “We only have seven guys on the team. You’re required to start six; we started all seven. So it was a good team win.”

Wesleyan’s top singles players struggled Saturday, as Jeff Legunn ’13 succumbed to a 4-6, 4-6 defeat and Ravy Uong ’13 fell by a score of 1-6, 0-6. However, the doubles pair of Legunn and Uong was noticeably more successful, as the Cardinals’ top doubles pair won their match 8-4, but not without some room for improvement.

“We were focusing on doubles a lot to prepare for this,” Uong said. “That’s our main focus for this year, just trying to improve it from last year. Last year [doubles pairs] weren’t completely set, so we’re pretty used to switching around, but we’re trying to find a stable setting if possible.”

This first win looks to be a confidence booster for men’s tennis, as the shorthanded group has proven it can hold its own and is now even more optimistic for the return to a ten-man roster for the spring season. For now, every win simply makes a growing team, comprised of mostly sophomores, even better.

“Match experience at this point seems to be the big differentiator,” Blank said. “Our doubles definitely need to get better for the NESCAC season, but for what we’re going to deal with in the fall, I think we just need to keep playing, keep practicing hard, keep putting in the hours. But I fully expect us to win all five non-conference games.”

The Cardinal men will play next in their home opener on the Vine Street courts on Sept. 19as they take on the Union College Dutchmen.