Middlebury, Vt. – The Colby Men’s Tennis team began their fall 2023 campaign at the Middlebury Invitational. Colby sent six players to the tournament to compete across four flights of singles and two flights of doubles. The event hosted Colby, Bates, Tufts, Middlebury, RPI, Skidmore and Brandeis.

In the A flight singles, senior captain Joey Barrett had a fantastic weekend, taking down opponents from RPI, Middlebury, and Brandeis before losing a nail biter to Middlebury’s Julian Wu in the finals, 1-6, 6-4, 6-10. Other mules found similar success, with every player making a draw semi-final in either singles or doubles.

 

Colby first-years Sandeep Alapati and Paul Dandler notably made their college debuts. Alapati made the semi-finals of the C flight, before falling to Oliver Obeid from Tufts, 2-6, 6-3, 8-10. Dandler won his first round match in a commanding style before falling to Andre Djokic from Tufts with a score of  4-6, 6-4, 7-10. In doubles, Dandler paired up with Junior Captain Jake Cohen to make the semi-finals of the A draw.

 

In the D singles flight, Junior Sriram Das made a run to the semi-finals after beating RPI and Tufts players, before losing a 1-6 4-6 battle to Srinivasan from RPI. Das also paired up with Sophomore Aidan Kwong to make the semi-finals of the B doubles draw, following two fantastic wins on Saturday.

 

Head Coach Adam Reeb commented on the weekend saying, “It was a really good opening weekend overall. Everyone played well and had good results. We are excited to take the lessons learned from the past few days and apply them to the next two weeks of practice before ITA regionals.”

 

The Mules travel to Bowdoin on Friday September 29th to continue their fall season at the New England ITA Regional Tournament.