The University of Chicago tennis teams continued their dominating performances with victories in three matches on Saturday. The No. 10 women knocked off Hope College 8–1, while the men took down Hope and Lewis University in two complete duals. The No. 5 men swept Hope 9–0 at home and came away with a 7–2 victory against Lewis at Evergreen Racquet Club.
The UChicago women started the day off strong with victories in all three doubles matches. At the No. 1 doubles spot, first-year Marjorie Antohi and second-year Rachel Kim picked up the win against their opponents with a score of 8–5. The No. 2 and No. 3 doubles teams won their matches handily by margins of 8–4 and 8–3, respectively. In singles play, the Maroons won five out of the six matches in straight sets to earn an overall singles record this season of 26–1.
On the men’s side, UChicago split up their players to compete in two separate matches. In their win against Hope, the Maroons easily took all three doubles matches. The highlight of the action was No. 1 pair of third-years David Liu and first-year Erik Kerrigan shutting out their opponents 8–0. All six singles matches went to the Maroons in straight sets. At the No. 2 and No. 5 spots, third-year Luke Tsai and first-year Jaird Meyer blanked their opponents with 6–0, 6–0 wins.
Just south of campus in Evergreen Park, IL, the other half of the men’s team faced off against DII foe Lewis. The Maroons went 2–1 in doubles play, dropping a close match at the No. 1 spot by a score of 8–6. At the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles spots, UChicago came away with 8–2 and 8–1 victories. In singles play, the Maroons took five out of six matches.
Third-year Nick Chua, who competed at the No. 1 singles spot and No. 3 doubles spot against Lewis, thought the team performed well for a match this early in the year. “We’re just starting a new season, but we are trying to set a better tone at the beginning of the season than last year. I thought all the guys from top to bottom really competed for every point, and that’s always great to see,” he said.
Chua added, “There were points in every match where we could have executed better. Guys could have picked better shots to go for, finished the point stronger, or known better when they weren’t in control of the point. However, these are things that we’ll get better at as the season moves along.”
The undefeated Maroons have the weekend off before back-to-back competitions on February 18 and 19. The teams will travel to Indianapolis for a matchup against Denison University on Saturday before taking the court at DePauw University on Sunday. Last year, the men defeated both Denison and DePauw 8–1, while the women knocked off Denison and DePauw by scores of 6–3 and 8–1, respectively. The women’s squad will face two top-25 teams in No. 22 Denison and No. 25 DePauw.
