Although the men’s tennis Cardinals put up a good fight against the Tufts Jumbos on Wednesday, the brown and blue elephants proved to be too much for Wesleyan as the Cardinals fell to the Jumbos 8-1 in Medford, Mass.
The doubles matches proved to be a struggle for the Cardinals with Wesleyan dropping all three matches. The duo of Jeff Legunn ’13 and Michael Piderit ’12 lost 5-8, the freshman team of Ravy Uong ’13 and Alex Hirsch ’13 fell 2-8, and the sophomore pairing of Brian McDermott ’12 and Robert Troyer ’12 lost by the closest margin, 6-8.
The trouble in the doubles matches seemed to set the mood for the team as the lone point for the Cardinals came from Legunn, the number one singles player. He won his match in three sets going 6-1, 2-6, 10-6. After easily winning the first set and then losing the second set, Legunn faced off in a third-set tiebreaker, in which he was able to hold off his opponent and clench a Cardinal victory.
“I felt like I was a better player than my opponent, and if I just calmed down and played my game, I would end up as the winner,” Legunn said. “I did just that…I waited for the right shots to be aggressive on, and it worked for me.”
There were three other freshmen Cardinals who also played three-set matches but were unable to come out on top of their Jumbo opponents. Hirsch, at number three singles, fell 6-3, 3-6, 2-10; Uong, at number four singles, fell 6-3, 2-6, 2-6; and Michael Glen ’13, at number six singles, fell 7-5, 0-6, 7-10.
Going into the match, the team was ready to play well and knew this was a very important match for the year that would help gauge qualifying for the NESCAC tournament. However, the Jumbos just were too strong of a force. Legunn, however, will not let this one loss affect the rest of the season.
“I was under the impression that we had enough depth on our team to beat Tufts, but they ended up being an equal team to us,” he said. “A lot of matches could have gone either way, and the entire match could have had a different result. We tried hard, and the loss is behind us.”
Despite the loss, the team played well and is will keep on working as a team to achieve their end goals. With so many freshmen on the team, there is a lot of potential in the years to come. Five of the Cardinals’ six singles players are freshmen, compared to just one of six for Tufts.
This loss marks the Cardinals’ third consecutive loss in this season and 24th straight against Tufts, dating back to 1977. Wesleyan’s last victory against the Jumbos came on May 6, 1941.
The Cardinals will face two more away matches, with the next against Little Three rival Williams on Tuesday, April 20. The Cards will look to wrap up their season with a home victory against Bates during the final weekend in April.
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