Men's Tennis Wins First ECAC Championship since 2001

The Princeton men’s tennis team enjoyed tremendous success this past weekend, capturing its first Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship since 2001. The Tigers battled a group of challenging Ivy League teams, including Brown, Penn and Cornell.

Riding a five-match winning streak which saw decisive victories against Navy, Georgetown, NJIT and Buffalo, the men’s team had great confidence heading into the ECAC tournament hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. The 8-2 Tigers opened play against Brown University, sweeping the Bears 4-0. After the one doubles team dropped their match, the doubles pairs of sophomore Diego Vives and freshman Jimmy Wasserman and junior captains Thomas Colautti and Joshua Yablon prevailed in their respective contests to seal the all-important doubles point. Securing the doubles point sparked strong performances in singles play. Vives carried his momentum from doubles, winning at the one position 6-3, 6-4, while junior Kial Kaiser and senior Luke Gamble steamrolled through their matches, with each not dropping a set below the score of 6-2, setting up a duel against the Penn Quakers on their home courts.

The third-seeded Tigers started off on the right foot Saturday by grabbing the doubles point against a seventh-seeded Penn squad with wins from the two and three positions. Vives and Wasserman maintained their high level of play, winning 6-3. Wasserman attributed their triumphs to “strong serving and putting together a couple of good points on the return game.” Princeton found itself up 3-1 following another strong showing from the five and six singles players Kaiser and Gamble, who won in straight sets. However, Penn showed great resolve, prevailing on courts two and four to tie the match up. There was a feeling throughout the day the match would come down to junior Alex Day’s contest against Penn’s Josh Pompan, and it did. After dropping the first set 5-7, Day rallied to win the second before coming up with some incredible shotmaking in a 6-3 deciding set that sent the Tigers to their first ECAC final since 2008.

Waiting for Princeton was the 60th nationally ranked Cornell team, which had just knocked off top-seed Harvard. Once again, the Tigers secured the doubles point. Coulatti and Yablon finished the weekend with three match victories, and this time the No. 1 duo of Day and Gamble won 6-3, allowing the Tigers to gain the early advantage in the contest. In singles action, Vives dominated at the one singles position 6-2, 6-2 while Day and Gamble both toughed out three set matches to put Princeton over the top. Coach Billy Pate was especially happy with his team’s effort on Sunday. Courtesy of GoPrincetonTigers.com coach Pate said, "We knew Cornell would come after us, and they did. They're a very talented team, top to bottom. Every single match was very close. We're really happy to get through and I'm very proud of the guys."

After a streak of five ECAC final appearances without a win, the tennis team is certainly proud of its accomplishments. Josh Yablon said about the weekend’s success, "To get a trophy is always good. I think the way we did it today, the whole weekend, getting better each match, was a large step in the right direction. Most of the guys played some of their best tennis this weekend, and we won all three doubles points, which is something to build on." The Tigers look to extend their eight-match win streak as they square off against Rice University this upcoming weekend down in Houston, Texas.