Over the weekend the men’s tennis team competed against eight other teams, including Ivy foes Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Princeton, at the Farnsworth Invitational in Princeton, N.J., where the freshmen showed their merit in the first tournament of the year.

The tournament — the Elis’ first of the season — consisted of five singles draws, two doubles draws and consolation matches for each draw.

“This tournament was a good experience and a good way to prepare for the season,” captain Connor Dawson ’10 said. “We played better than last year; the team is much deeper. We had seven out of our eight players competing on the last day, three in main-draw matches and four in consolation matches.”

Several of the team’s members performed quite well in their draws. In the “D” singles draw, Daniel Hoffman ’13 had a sound 6-3, 6-2 win against Penn player Robert Hong to take the draw. Additionally, Marc Powers ’13 was victorious in his match against Marcelo Mazzetto of Buffalo, defeating him 6-2, 6-0 in the “B” consolation draw. In the “B” singles draw, John Huang ’13 made it to the championship match, defeating Penn and Penn State before losing to Cornell’s Andy Gauthier in the final match of the draw, 5-7, 6-4, 3-6.

“It was a great new experience for me,” Powers said. “It was nice finally to play against the kids I will be playing against for the next four years. It’s a big jump from juniors to the college level, but this was a really good first experience.”

The three freshmen on the team are beginning to make a difference with their successes in the tournament.

“I was particularly pleased by the freshmen,” head coach Alex Dorato said.

The Bulldog talent extended beyond the freshmen, though. Matt Schimmel ’10 defeated Alex Kalanin of Buffalo 6-1, 6-4 in the “E” singles draw, which Dorato applauded.

Calvin Bennett ’11 and Dawson, and Hoffman and Schimmel, both lost their doubles first-round matches.

“The doubles was not so good,” Dorato said. “But we have not practiced that part of the game much. We will continue working on it over the next few weeks.”

But in Dawson’s singles match, he advanced to the second round with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory over Bimington’s Moshe Levy, but lost to Penn’s Eugen Brazdil 4-6, 2-6 in the second round.

The Elis hope their early success will continue in the upcoming Yale Invitational at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center on Oct. 3 and 4.