Yale Athletics

The Yale men’s tennis team took to the court at the Chowderfest Invitational, where they secured hard-won victories over Harvard and Cornell over the weekend.

From Friday to Sunday, the Bulldogs served their way through the singles and doubles teams of Harvard, Cornell and Brown in Cambridge. Overall, Yale secured nine singles and three doubles victories out of a total 12 singles and six doubles matches.

“It was a great start of the season for the team,” interim head coach Eduardo Ugalde said in an interview with the News. “We had been working hard on becoming tough competitors, and I think that definitely showed over the weekend, especially in singles.”

With a 75 percent victory rate in the singles category, Yale earned strong wins against the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Brown Bears. Team captain Eric Li ’26, Edward Liao ’28, Jason Shuler ’27 and Dylan Tsoi ’27 were the ones bringing the heat to the other Ivy players, all earning wins. The team’s only losses came at the hands of Harvard’s Mitchell Lee and Valdemar Pape.

In the season opener, Tsoi and Liao went undefeated in both singles and doubles. Tsoi snagged victories over all his opponents across the court: Brown, Cornell and Harvard in both singles and doubles. He ended the weekend with a 6–0 record. Liao clinched a 3–0 record, becoming the biggest fear of colleges with red mascots through his wins over Harvard and Cornell. He swiftly defeated Harvard’s Benjamin Privara in straight sets of 6–4 and 6–2.

“I came into the week practicing quite well which gave me a lot of confidence, and I felt clear on my game plan which allowed me to be composed in bigger moments where I previously struggled,” Tsoi said. “My game felt sharp and combined with the energy and support of my teammates around me, I was able to have a great weekend.”

On the doubles court, the Bulldogs fought a tough battle against their Ivy contenders, clawing away with three victories of the six matches played. The dynamic duo of Schuler and Tsoi offered Yale fans cause for celebration after they swept their opposition in each of their matches with scores of 6–0, 6–2 and 6–2. They defeated opponents from each school present.

“We are working on doubles, we tried a lot of new things,” Li said. “We did not execute perfectly, but we are moving in the right direction with how we want to play. We experimented with new strategies that we believe will benefit us in the long run.”

With the wins and losses tallied up, the team is now looking to practice in preparation for the next tournament. Ugalde and Li say that the focus will be with fine tuning the tactics and improving execution, especially with regards to doubles.

The men’s tennis team’s next tournament is the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championship, which will take place Sept. 24 to Sept. 28 in Tulsa, Okla.