Middlebury College won the final three singles matches to upend the Emory University men's tennis team, 5-4, in the national quarterfinals played Tuesday afternoon at the Dwight Davis Memorial Tennis Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Eagles led 4-2 halfway through doubles before the Panthers rallied with three three-set wins. With the defeat, Emory sees its 2023-24 campaign come to an end with an overall record of 18-6 while Middlebury improves to 20-4 and advances to Wednesday's semifinals where they'll meet the University of Chicago.
Emory took control of the match by taking two out of three doubles points and opened singles play with two wins from the three matches that finished first.
In doubles, sophomore Dean Kamenev and senior Nolan Shah raced out to a 6-0 lead on court two before earning the first point of the afternoon with an 8-3 decision. They conclude their season with 25 doubles victories, going 25-5 overall and were 17-4 together this spring.
Middlebury proved to be victorious on court three as they defeated freshman Christian Liew and graduate student Justin Waldman, 8-4. With the match even at 1-1, seniors Ryan Glanville and Brandon Cohen came through with the break, taking the No. 1 match by an 8-6 score to give the Eagles a 2-1 edge going into singles.
At the start of singles, doubles tandem Waldman and Liew collected straight set wins as Emory increased its lead to 4-2. Waldman was the first to finish as he picked up the 6-0, 6-3 win on court four. The Panthers claimed a point on court one as Kamenev fell 3-6, 0-6 before Liew answered with his 6-1, 6-4 verdict on court five.
With Emory leading, attention turned to courts two, three and six where all three matches were decided in third sets.
On courts two and three, Shah and Glanville both dropped their respective first sets before rebounding in the second. Shah fell behind 6-4 in the first but would secure a 6-2 win in the second. In the third set, Shah jumped out to a 3-1 advantage, but his opponent rallied with five consecutive wins to give MC its third point of the match. On court three, Glanville dropped his opening set 2-6 prior to winning a second set tiebreak 7-6 (6). In the third, he staved off elimination by coming back from 5-3 but his counterpart collected back-to-back wins to win the set 7-5 to level the match at 4-4.
With all other matches finished, all eyes shifted towards court six where junior Emilio Van Cotthem squared off against Middlebury first-year Noah Lewis. Van Cotthem scored an impressive win in the first set, winning in a tiebreak, 7-6 (3) after trailing 5-3 but would see Lewis claim the second set by a 6-4 score. In the third, Lewis led 5-0 before Van Cotthem cut it to 5-2. However, that was as close as he would come as Lewis picked up the next point to seal the win for the Panthers.
With the team championships concluded for the Eagles, Kamenev will look to represent the Blue & Gold in the singles draw of the individual championships starting May 26.