Author: Lewis Woloch

The women’s tennis team is surging into the 2021-22 season fresh off their second consecutive NESCAC championship and another deep run into the NCAA tournament. They came up just short of their second title in three years (due to COVID-19 they did not compete in Fall 2020) but are ready for another competitive season. With only a few students graduating last year and an exciting crop of new first-years, the Cardinals and their coach Mike Fried hope to bring home a national trophy to Wesleyan in the spring. 

Despite the team’s obvious prowess in the NESCAC and beyond, Coach Fried was understated when speaking about his team’s success.

“[The team] downplays expectations every year…” Fried said. “As a team we know we can compete with anyone, but we have to stay process orientated and build confidence as the season progresses.”

Tennis is one of the few sports that plays year-round, with tournaments in the fall and conference play in the spring. A spectator can only guess the mental toughness a player must posses to continue to battle each and every day for the entire school year. As a result, working to raise team morale and energy is key to keeping players mentally prepared and physically ready. 

“Meditation and yoga are huge aspects of my life,” Sophia Henderson ’22 said. “The men’s and women’s teams are really close; we do team activities like hiking, and before practice, we have a group meditation.” 

A lot of the team’s success can be attributed to Fried’s approach to coaching and his attention to players’ wellbeing. There are many different skill sets present on the team, a depth that is visible in the difference between the strategies for doubles and singles matches. The Cardinals heavily prioritize teamwork; when you pass by the Vine St. courts, you can hear cheering and feel the energy up and down the courts, a testament to their supportive culture. And with the women’s practices adjacent to the men’s, an uncommon arrangement according to Coach Fried, the conjoined teams can cheer each other on in practice and in matches, breaking down the gender barrier that so many sports foster and creating a more cohesive community.

Additionally, Coach Fried expects his players to practice as much as they can over the summer but still understands that the players have jobs, internships, and potentially other obligations. Fried said he wants Wesleyan tennis to be consistently at the top of the conference, but he understands that academics and mental health come first. He strives to strike a balance between rigorous training, awareness of player’s interests outside of tennis, and an emphasis on team culture, which makes for a successful team. 

With an upcoming tournament at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Thursday night, the team is anxious and excited to get their season started and claim the glory found in past years. The tournament, which is their first competition of the year, will be especially important in creating that quintessential Cards chemistry. When asked about the distribution of playing time in the first games, Coach Fried acknowledged that only a few players are able to compete at each event. However, he shared that the team attempts to place its youngest members on a fast track for development.

“We incorporate the freshmen immediately, so they will be playing our best players as soon as they arrive, allowing for greater development and exposure,” Fried said.

Looking back on last year before they travel to Boston, Coach Fried recounted his favorite moment of last year: beating out Tufts to secure back-to-back NESCAC titles. The home win signified the growing presence of the women’s tennis team, which had previously never won a NESCAC title before 2019 and had never won a title on their home courts. This is a testament to what Wesleyan women’s tennis is all about: perseverance, culture, and team pride.

Lewis Woloch can be reached at lwoloch@wesleyan.edu.

Eli Seaver can be reached at eseaver@wesleyan.edu. 

Despite the shortened, pandemic-ridden tennis season of 2021, it’s been nothing but smooth sailing for the women’s tennis team. Keeping with the momentum of their NESCAC and National Championships in 2019, the Cardinals remain undefeated (4–0) after back-to-back home victories, dropping the anchor on division foes Middlebury and Hamilton. Their division also includes Amherst and Williams, whom they soundly defeated to carry home the Little Three Title for the second time in history. In the five-match season, which is significantly shorter than the usual 20-plus match season, the Cards’ victories place them atop the West Division and in a secure spot to defend their 2019 title run in this year’s modified Championship, which consists of the top teams from the East and West divisions. The opposing East division consists of Bates, Colby, Tufts, Trinity, and Conn. College.

As per usual in our present sporting world, the NESCAC’s 2021 women’s tennis season has been greatly altered by COVID-19. Masks and social distancing are necessary for all players and coaches during matches, and the stands are sparsely dotted with masked fans. 

When asked about how these precautions have changed the season, Megan Tran ’22 remarked on the team’s mental fortitude.

“[We] learned not to think too far ahead and just take things one weekend at a time,” Tran said. 

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been shocking and startling for sports teams, so it is important for players not to expect the best conditions. Tran also explained how wearing masks has added some physical conditioning concerns, but emphasized that the team has worked through this setback. 

In a Saturday, April 17 match, the Cardinals took care of a slightly lower-ranked Middlebury team. The Cards won the match 7–2, with a 3–0 sweep in doubles play in the rematch of 2019’s NESCAC Championship, where they won 5–2. In the singles matches, both Polina Kiseleva ’21 and Katie Fleischman ’23 made quick work of their opponents, combining for two shutout sets. Adding to the singles wins, Caitlin Goldberg ’23 and Serim Jin ’23 won their matches, leading the team to victory.

The 7–2 win was a monumental stepping stone for the Red and Black, as it was their first home victory against Middlebury since 2000. However, the team is no stranger to snapping losing streaks, as they defeated Williams for the first time in 2019, breaking a losing streak of 45 matches that dated back to 1974. A similar losing streak was snapped against Amherst in 2017, which constituted the Card’s second win since 1977 (the other win came in 1980). The turnaround of the women’s team has been spectacular, and their continued success through the 2021 season could be a peek into possible Wesleyan dominance over the foreseeable future.

On Sunday, April 18, a day after their win over Middlebury, the Cardinals shut out a struggling and winless Hamilton squad in 9–0 fashion, with multiple shutout sets from Tran, first-year Kriti Williams ’24, and Jin, who blew out her rival for two consecutive 6–0 sets. The win topped off the weekend magic and gave a tip of the hat towards the three senior players—Kiseleva, Alissa Nakamoto ’21 and Daniela Alvarez ’21—who all picked up doubles wins on their senior night. Historically, Wesleyan has been dominant over Hamilton, with their win on Sunday adding to a 15-game win streak that began in 2005. 

This blowout was characteristic of the Cardinals’ season, as they have been able to exert their prowess of NESCAC teams in the wake of all the changes brought by COVID-19. On their win over Hamilton, and their season as a whole, Tran noted the team’s consistent advantage in terms of enthusiasm, with the players taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to motivating their teammates.

“The energy difference between us and other teams is usually pretty apparent during matches, especially in terms of volume,” said Tran. 

Women’s tennis has been rolling as of late, and their enthusiasm and support for their teammates will only grow as their winning continues. With only one game left in the regular season, the Cardinals look to continue their undefeated season and 16 game winning streak, which stretches back into the mid-2019 season. By the looks of their red-hot play this past weekend, the Cards will be hard to beat. So watch out Hamilton, the Wesleyan train is coming to town, and they are on a mission to win back-to-back NESCAC titles.

Lewis Woloch can be reached at lwoloch@wesleyan.edu.

Eli Seaver can be reached at eseaver@wesleyan.edu. 

Last March, hearts broke as the NCAA tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the hype has been doubled by the fact that every diehard college basketball fan hadn’t seen upsets, tears, game-winning threes, and nets being cut down in almost two years. As the end of March neared, our own Wesleyan bracket pool began to form. Along with millions of other bracket-makers, we began the basketball craze by searching for the odds of a perfect bracket, ogling with fascination and excitement at the absurd one in nine quintillion number staring back at us from our screens.

The whole ordeal of March Madness is dripping in fantasy; the hopes and dreams of the bottom seeds attempting to make a deep run against the powerhouse teams in the tournament, coupled with the millions of bracket makers dreaming of their predicted buzzer-beater upsets becoming realized in proper March Madness fashion.

As predicted, 2021’s March Madness has been a wild ride. The formidable two-seed, Ohio State, was stunned in a first-round loss by the knockdown three-point specialists of Oral Roberts. The Tulsa, Oklahoma college, a fifteenth seed from the Summit League, went on to beat seventh-seed Florida and almost upset third-seed Arkansas in the Sweet Sixteen. The first two rounds saw other high-seeded teams getting sent home left and right, as Virginia, Texas, Iowa, West Virginia, and Purdue’s championship dreams were all crushed.

By the Elite Eight, it was clear that the Pac-12 and 101-year-old Sister Jean were responsible for most of the madness. Twelfth-seeded Oregon State and eleventh-seeded UCLA were in the midst of deep runs, while Oregon had triumphed in an offensive battle over the sharpshooting No.2 Iowa Buckeyes before falling to USC in the Sweet Sixteen. During the Elite Eight, UCLA was able to pull off an unbelievable win against first-seeded Michigan, sending the second first seeded team home and securing their spot in the Final Four. Outside of the Pac-12, Loyola Chicago made similar splashes of madness before falling to Oregon State in the Sweet Sixteen. Backed by Sister Jean’s divine associations, the team upset first-seeded Illinois, forcing one of the tournament favorites into an early departure and ruining almost every single bracket in our pool.

Looking towards the championship weekend, the two remaining first-seeded teams, Gonzaga and Baylor, are looking unstoppable. Gonzaga remains undefeated this 2020-2021 season, and if they pull off a win in their next two games they would become the first team since 1976 to complete an undefeated season. The Zags have cruised through the Western Conference thus far, winning in blowout after blowout by building up an average margin of victory well over twenty points per game. On Saturday, Gonzaga will match up against the heavily under-dogged UCLA as both attempt to make history.

On the other side of the bracket, Baylor has similarly cruised through the South after a mediocre end to their regular season. Carried by their trio of flashy, sharpshooting guards, Baylor is a scary mix of three-point shooting, transition buckets, and tough defense. Their small-ball lineup has worked through their first four games, but will certainly be tested by Houston’s staunch defense and impressive ability to grab offensive and defensive boards. Houston’s bruisers have been able to make up for their slower offense as they made the Final Four for the first time since 1984, where they went to three consecutive Final Fours with future NBA stars Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. However, even with a string of stacked teams, Houston has a history of Final Four failures, tying for the most Final Four appearances without a championship win with five appearances; with their tough matchup against Baylor, they might just propel themselves into an unwanted first. Their bad luck might be due to running into some of the greatest college basketball teams and players in history, including a slew of Hall of Famers, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, and Michael Jordan. So, show us what you got Houston!

With both of our brackets busted, we will be watching on Saturday with a slight taste of resentment. But regardless of hard feelings, we look forward to the games this weekend, hoping for whatever madness, heartbreaks, and buzzer-beaters the March Madness Gods can toss our way. Jalen Suggs, Johnny Juzang, Jared Butler, Quentin Grimes…the floor is yours.

Lewis Woloch can be reached at lwoloch@wesleyan.edu

Eli Seaver can be reached at eseaver@wesleyan.edu

I remember when I heard that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant were teaming up and coming to the Brooklyn Nets. I was at summer camp, walking around with a group of friends, when a younger kid came running up to me with the news. I sprinted back to my bunk, grabbed my D’Angelo Russell jersey, and paraded around with it on for the rest of the day.

A few months ago, the Nets got yet another superstar. I had just finished playing a game of basketball outside in the freezing cold, and as I scrolled through my phone with gloved fingers, a notification popped up: JAMES HARDEN TO NETS. This shocked me, yet after a few minutes, I simply accepted the news and went on with my day.

By now, I’ve gotten used to the Nets, an underdog team for years, filling up ESPN headlines. So when a friend told me Blake Griffin had signed with Brooklyn a few nights ago, I wasn’t too surprised. My ambivalence about a player of Griffin’s caliber joining my favorite team is indicative of how much the NBA has changed, how tampering with teams is now less of an illegality and more of a normalcy, and how superteams like the Nets are taking over the league.

As an almost decade-long fan of my hometown Nets, it’s pretty hard for me to start this article by ripping into them and their front office, so I’ll go back about 10 years. In 2010, LeBron James left the Cavaliers and joined the Miami Heat, creating the first “superteam.” He joined his buddy Dwayne Wade in Miami, while also recruiting Chris Bosh from the Raptors. Three superstars from three different teams joined together to make a superteam. To me this was the first instance of modern tampering, because it satisfied two key things. First, Wade and James were close friends, so they obviously discussed their possible union. Second, the city that attracted these three players was a big, popular one with cultural influence. A third potential part of the concept of tampering is that a player publicly expresses that he is upset with his current team. James didn’t do this outright, but it was clear he wasn’t too happy in Cleveland. Still, I’ll give him credit, especially because any public complaint would’ve caused a whole ruckus.

LeBron James tampered in a few smaller ways after his stint with the Heat, luring Kevin Love to the Cavaliers and recruiting Anthony Davis to join the Lakers. Davis’ move to LA was marred by an actual tampering accusation by the NBA, the only legitimate case of this happening in recent years, that was followed by Davis getting fined. Kevin Durant was also painted as a bit of a “snake,” for a lack of a better word, when he joined Steph Curry, and the Warriors created another an obvious superteam. However, none of these instances compare at all to what the Nets have done in the past year or so. And trust me, I love Brooklyn, I love the Nets, I love general manager Sean Marks, and I love most of the players. But they might be ruining the NBA.

There’s two things that set the Brooklyn superteam apart from any other superteam. First, there’s the trade that brought over Harden, a trade that was fueled by Harden intentionally playing poorly on the Rockets. Second, the Nets have made three headlines with major deals. Three! Two years ago, the four stars in Brooklyn were averaging a combined 110 points per game. It’s crazy to think about, and it’s even crazier how nonchalant it’s all become. It was a big deal back in 2010 when LeBron created a championship team out of thin air. While the superteams of the later 2010s weren’t as influential or historic as that Heat team, they paved the way for the monstrosity of the Brooklyn Nets to emerge into the limelight. In the back of James Harden’s mind, and the back of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving’s minds, and even the back of Blake Griffin’s mind, was the knowledge that they could be on a championship team with the snap of their fingers.

I’ll end with a commentary on the future. Kevin Durant is already a great player of our generation, a Hall of Fame bound star with a revolutionary skillset and persona. But when he wins a few more championships with the Nets and comes close to catching Jordan’s record, it won’t be a question if he’s a top five player of all time. What certainly won’t mar his legacy are the three different teams he was on. LeBron has already been on three teams as well, setting the table for greats to come. It’s only a matter of time before every superstar will have won championships on multiple teams.

Lewis Woloch can be reached at lwoloch@wesleyan.edu

The first Grand Slam of the calendar year, 2021’s Australian Open, gave way to two champions a generation apart.

For men’s tennis, Novak Djokovic won his 18th Grand Slam, and at 33 years old, he still has a few more years to catch up to Federer and Nadal’s 20 titles. On the women’s side, Naomi Osaka bested Serena Williams once again and went on to secure a championship, sparking many debates on whether she will eventually replace Williams as the GOAT. Osaka is only 23, yet her stellar play over the past few years has convinced many that she has the potential to reach the greatness of Williams. She’s reached four Grand Slam finals already, and guess what? She’s won all four! Her stunning performance in the Australian Open also extended her streak of consecutive games won to 21, a formidable achievement even without a Grand Slam title at the end. However, Osaka is still as humble as they come. She deflects most comparisons to Williams, focusing on how Williams has always been an idol.

“You can only just keep going down your own path,” Osaka emphasized after the tournament. 

Osaka has yet to play on a clay court, which is where her next Grand Slam, the French Open, will be. The new surface will be her next test, and Osaka is poised to become a household name for years to come as she continues to shine in the spotlight. 

The men’s tournament was graced with a different story. Novak Djokovic overcame a troubled 2020 to reassert his prowess. Before I go into the nitty-gritty storyline of angry ball-throwing and COVID-19 violations, however, there’s another, lesser known story that deserves to be touched on.

Aslan Karatsev, ranked 114th in the world, reached the semifinals in his Grand Slam debut and held his own for the first couple games before losing to Djokovic. Karatsev was a true underdog story, with a tough, scrappy, and relentless style of play. Although he was still defeated by the reigning champion in the semis, the 27-year-old Russian has certainly made a name for himself. 

On the other hand, for Djokovic, the story of this tournament was less about making a name for himself than regaining the fame he once had. That’s not to say he hasn’t always been a star, but before the Australian Open, there were a few events that definitely cast a cloud over Djokovic’s achievements. His ill-fated Adria Tour, a tournament that he sponsored during the thick of the pandemic, went up in smoke after he contracted COVID-19. Then, during the US Open, he accidentally/on purpose threw a tennis ball at a ball-person’s throat in frustration and was promptly ejected from the tournament. He sought redemption during the French Open, but was obliterated by Rafael Nadal in the finals, giving Nadal a three win lead over Djokovic’s 17 titles. Essentially, Djokovic needed this win in Australia to show himself and the world that he could still reign supreme. He beat Danil Medvedev handily in the championship, and is focused once again on his chase of Nadal and Federer. 

Players aside, this Australian Open, like many other sports events in the present day, looked different than previous Opens. If even a few of the players had gotten COVID-19, the whole tournament would have had to be shut down. Melbourne had recovered from the hardest days of the virus, and city officials did not want to risk the great progress they had made. There actually was a COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, but the players were not affected. A hotel containing some fans that were attending the tournament experienced a bout of the virus, prompting five days where the stands remained completely empty. 

Individual players also experienced difficulties chartering flights to Australia and became restless, as they had to quarantine before playing their matches without many opportunities to exercise in all their free time. However, the tournament was played through without too many hiccups, showing us all that maybe there is a chance for some tennis normalcy once again in our new, COVID-ridden world. 

Lewis Woloch can be reached at lwoloch@wesleyan.edu.