Undefeated to start their respective seasons, the women’s and men’s tennis teams went on the road to face Washington College Shoremen on April 10. Neither the women’s or men’s team ended up dropping a match, with each side going for a combined 9-0 in doubles and singles play.
The women’s team recorded its first non-forfeit win of the day when the Hopkins doubles pair of graduate student Sophia Strickland and senior Anjali Kashyap won eight straight games to shut out Shorewomen Piper Sartison and Ella Samer. The sophomore duo of Anjali Devireddy and Emily Javedan lost only two games out of 10 to pick up another point for the Jays.
Onto singles play, senior Dhanya Asokumar came out on top in 12 straight games to take the match. Strickland went undefeated in the first set and finished 6-3 in the second set to win the match.
Freshman Ali Bader only gave up one game in her victory over Samer. Devireddy took care of business in her match as well to give Hopkins their eighth point of the day. At the number-one singles slot, Kashyap won her first set 6-2. The second set came closer, but Kashyap secured the two-game lead to take the set 7-5 and the match overall.
This win not only marks the team’s fourth of the season but also extends the Jays’ regular-season conference win streak to 134 wins. As for individual feats, Kashyap comes out of this matchup 22nd in school history in total wins at 71; Strickland needs only five more total wins to reach 100.
Like the women’s team, the men’s team managed to win every match. The senior-freshman combo of Vishnu Joshi and Daniel Ardila came out victorious over the Shoremen pair of Christian Gruyon and Andrew Province 8-2. Freshman twins James and Thomas Yu handled their doubles match by winning 8-3.
With those two wins and another doubles win coming from a forfeit, the Jays headed into singles play, leading 3-0. A pair of forfeits to start the singles extended the Hopkins lead to 5-0.
Senior Robby Simon shut out both sets of his match 6-0 to add another point for the Jays. Junior Brian Wang came off the court next after defeating his opponent 6-0 in the first set and 6-3 in the second. Joshi and Yuwon their respective matches with relative ease, as neither allowed for more than two wins in a set.
With the 9-0 win, the men’s team now holds a 4-0 record as well as a 17-game win streak over the Shoremen.
Wang attributed the team’s strong start to the season to the leadership and a hunger to win.
“I think it’s a mixture of good leadership from our seniors and a team that’s itching to win. I think we all feel super fortunate to even be in the position where we could have a season in the first place so everyone shows up to practice extremely focused and with great energy,” he said.
While pleased with their undefeated record, Wang acknowledges that there is still work to be done.
“Honestly, we’ll just keep taking it day by day, practice by practice. We’re on quite a roll right now, [but] Gettysburg is another hurdle we're going to have to get over if we want to run the table for our conference and get a chance to compete for a national championship in May,” Wang said.
Both the women’s and men’s teams will look to stay perfect when they host the Gettysburg College Bullets on April 17.
