Except for the men’s doubles duo of David Aizenberg ’20 and Anupreeth Coramutla ’21, the season has come to an end for the the men’s and women’s tennis teams. The dynamic duo was selected to travel to Claremont, California in two weeks to compete in the NCAA national tennis tournament against students from all across the nation. For everyone else, now is the time to reflect on one of the most successful tennis seasons in decades, in which both teams spent much of the campaign in the national rankings. Here are how the last few weeks of the season went down for the tennis team.

The men’s team entered the University Athletic Association tournament as a fifth seed. Their first game was against the fourth seeded Washington University in St. Louis. After a long battle between two of the top teams in the conference, the Judges were dispatched by the  WashU Bears. The usually reliable tandem of Aizenberg and Coramulta did not muster a win, but the other two doubles teams did, putting the Judges up 2-1. However, in singles action, the Judges were less successful, losing four of the six matches. 

In the next round, the team faced the University of Rochester in a consolation game and easily won 8-1. The three doubles teams all won their games, and Aizenberg, Jackson Kogan ’19, Tyler Ng ’19, Benjamin Wolfe ’20 and Ethan Saal ’19 all won their respective singles matches. The team then went on to face Case Western Reserve University in the fifth-place match. This is the fourth year in a row that the Judges and the Case Western Tartans have met in this exact game. The doubles teams continued their dominance and, for the 18th time in 19 games, the Judges entered singles play in the lead. However, the singles games were a different story, with only Kogan securing a win for Brandeis. Four out of the six singles matches went to a marathon super tiebreaker, but only Kogan came out of the third round victorious. This 6-3 loss ended the Brandeis men’s tennis season. 

The women’s team entered the UAA tournament as a seventh seed looking to upset some of the higher-ranked opponents. They faced second-seeded Carnegie Mellon University in the first round, and were very close to achieving their goal. The Judges quickly fell behind 2-1 in doubles action, with the duo of Lauren Bertsch ’21 and Olivia Leavitt ’19 providing the one win. Bertsch, Michele Lehat ’19 and Haley Cohen ’18 were all victorious in singles action, and the match would come down to the last set. Leavitt was unfortunately unable to win the super tiebreaker, and the judges were downed 5-4. 

The team then advanced to take on New York University and, this time, their hunger for an upset was satisfied. The team came into the game with a chip on their shoulder, as the NYU Violets had already recorded a 5-4 win over the Judges earlier in the season. Brandeis continued their doubles dominance, sweeping all three matches on the day. In singles action, the teams split the games, resulting in a 6-3 win for the Judges. The team then advanced to the fifth-place match against Case Western. The Judges found themselves quickly behind 3-0 after doubles action and would never regain momentum, losing the match 7-2 and placing Brandeis sixth. 

Overall, both teams had their share of successes despite facing many worthy opponents. The Judges are on a positive trend, and the Brandeis tennis program looks to be on the brink of greatness. Only time will tell if the Judges can put the final pieces together to win a championship.