The NYU men’s tennis team commenced their 2012-2013 season at the Lion’s Kickoff Tournament hosted by The College of New Jersey this past Friday and Saturday.
Friday’s schedule included doubles matches between NYU, TCNJ and Stevens Institute of Technology.
NYU put forth a well-balanced combination of newcomers and returning players with four freshmen and four upperclassmen taking the court on Friday.
Freshmen Zachary Green and Aaron Meltzer made great first impressions, cementing two doubles victories as a highly effective tandem. The duo took down TCNJ 8-5 in the first round and defeated Stevens 8-3 in the second.
It was his first time playing on the collegiate level, and Green was extremely satisfied with the results from Friday.
“It was a great sigh of relief to walk off the court with a win under the belt,” Green said. “Leaving the tournament with a record of 2-0 is definitely a boon to the confidence.
In more action, freshman Sidd Thangirala and junior Daniel Kil went 1-1 on the first day as did sophomores William Smithline and Ting Yee Lai. In total, NYU went 4-4 in doubles actions, which was a highly commendable effort in the first competition of the season given that there were many new members playing on the college level for the first time.
As the sun set on the doubles actions, NYU moved forward into singles action on Saturday.
Freshmen Aaron Meltzer, Sidd Thangirala and Nicholas Tan won their first collegiate singles victories. Thangirala went 2-0 on the second day, recording a 6-1, 6-0 win over Stevens and a 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 over TCNJ. Tan eclipsed his opponent from Stevens 6-1, 5-7, 10-6. Meltzer defeated his Stevens opponent in straight sets with scores of 6-3 and 6-1.
The upperclassmen presented an equally formidable showing as juniors Steven Wu and Bowen Xu, as well as Smithline and junior Tim Wu. All went 1-1 on the day of individual matches. Xu and Smithline were comprehensive in each of their wins, with Xu sweeping both sets against his opponent from Stevens, while Smithline was equally as resilient, giving up a mere three games in his singles match against Stevens.
Matching their doubles record, NYU finished with a win percentage of .500 in singles action, taking eight of 16 singles matches this weekend.
NYU’s men’s tennis will travel to Ithaca College for the Intercollegiate Tennis Assoiciation Northeast Regional Championships the weekend of Sept. 28.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Sept. 17 print edition. Nicholas Colavito Nemeroff is a contributing writer. Email him at [email protected].
