This weekend, both the men’s and women’s tennis teams took trips up to Pennsylvania for matches against the Muhlenberg College Mules on Saturday and the Carnegie Mellon University Tartans on Sunday.
In the Saturday Centennial Conference action against the Mules, both the men’s and women’s teams won 9-0.
For the men, it increased their winning streak to start the season to seven games, and for the women it was their eighth win in a row after getting off to a slow 1-4 record to open the year.
The Sunday match against the Tartans brought the women’s eight-game winning streak to an end, as the Blue Jays lost 7-2.
The senior pair of Ashnaa Rao and Mikey Barthelmass won at first doubles, but Hopkins lost at second and third doubles and was down 2-1 going into singles play.
Singles play would end up hurting the Blue Jays, as they lost five of the six singles matchups. Sophomore Kimberly Zou was the only winner for Hopkins, as she won 6-3, 6-2 at fifth.
The men’s matchup was much closer and was a back and forth battle until the very end against seventh-ranked Carnegie Mellon.
In doubles, Hopkins started strong, with seniors Mike Buxbaum and Jeremy Dubin winning at first and senior Emerson Walsh and junior Justin Kang winning at second to give the Blue Jays an early 2-0 lead. Sophomore Scott Thygesen and junior David Perez could not keep the momentum going, however, as they lost at third 8-5.
The singles matchups were all hotly contested, as all six matchups either went to three sets or required a tiebreaker.At first, Buxbaum split the first two sets with the Tartans’ Daniel Levine and was up 4-0 in the third when he was forced to retire due to a bad ankle injury.
At second, Dubin overcame losing the first set to eventually win the matchup 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. With Hopkins leading 3-2, Carnegie Mellon tied it up with a come-from-behind victory by Chaz Downing over Thygesen in three sets.
The best of nine had turned into a best of three, and Carnegie Mellon took their first lead of the match when Hopkins freshman Cody Kim could not overcome losing the first set on tiebreaker. Kim lost the second set 6-3, and Hopkins had to win both of their last two matchups to pull out the win.
Walsh kept hope alive for the Blue Jays as he won at fifth 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-4 to tie it up at four and bring it down to the matchup at fourth.
“After I saw Jeremy [Dubin] won his third set, I knew we only needed two more matches to win, so I was able to take a minute and find a way to win that set.” Walsh said.
For Hopkins, It came down to Perez against Carnegie Mellon’s Kenny Zheng.
While Perez won the first set 7-6 (0), Zheng won sets two and three to secure the hard-fought victory for the Tartans.
The 5-4 loss was disappointing for the Jays, especially because of the unfortunate ending for Mike Buxbaum. The ankle injury was devastating, not only for that matchup, but for the rest of their season in general.
“Losing Mike [Buxbaum] is absolutely a huge blow to us, there’s no denying it. He’s not only our top spot in singles and doubles, but our leader on and off the court. However, we’re a very deep team, and we can still find a way to win big matches,” Walsh said.
One of those big matches, as Walsh mentioned, comes this Friday, April 14 against the Emory University Eagles. Emory enters the match ranked first in the country, so it will be a huge test for Hopkins, especially without their proven leader.
