Jan. 2, 2008
Happy Holidays from Chicago Men’s Tennis!
As we prepare for the 2008 season, I would like to take a moment to give you an update on the program. We begin the season with many new faces, five first years and one second year transfer to be exact. As is evident from our roster, we will be relying heavily on youth as we only graduated one player last year and are slated to send two off at the conclusion of this season.
Our two seniors are co-captains Bharath Sithian (N.Y., N.Y.) and Joseph Tchan (Woodland Hills, Calif.). Both Joe and Bharath are four-year letter winners and have done an incredible job so far of providing strong leadership. Both are economics majors and have already secured jobs upon graduation.
This year’s squad is probably the most talented group of guys that we’ve had since I began coaching at Chicago four seasons ago. Our incoming class was ranked #23 in the nation by Tennisrecruiting.net in their Mid-Major Rankings (all divisions - excluding major DI conferences). The junior national rankings of our incoming players were in 2007: #128, #172, #181, #248, #293, and #330.
Our regional tournament was held at Kalamazoo College in early October. It was a very talented and deep field of 128 players, the toughest I have seen. We advanced four players to the round of 16 (Tim Walsh, Lado Bakhutashvili, Will Zhang and Steve Saltarelli) and one to the quarterfinals (Will Zhang). In doubles, the team of Lado Bakhutashvili and Steve Saltarelli reached the semifinals before losing to the eventual champion 8-6.
Last season we had three first year players in our top six; this core of returning players will be expected to provide on-court leadership throughout the season. We currently are not ranked in the top 25 nationally and are #13 in the Central Region. It will be very interesting to see how our incoming players affect our ability to move up in the rankings.
Our 2008 dual match schedule is challenging. We kick off our traditional season at Northwestern on January 13 at 7 p.m. To my knowledge it’s the first match between Chicago and Northwestern in recent history. We are scheduled to play four Division I opponents, including an intriguing match-up at the Citadel during our spring break trip to South Carolina. Our key Division III matches include a home match vs. Washington (Mo.) on February 29 and matches against DePauw, Carleton, Kenyon, Denison, UW-Whitewater, Carthage, and Luther. This year’s UAA tournament will be hosted by Emory April 25-27.
Thank you for keeping up with the program and I wish you and your family a Happy New Year! |
