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Last weekend, the Yale women’s tennis team (6–6, 0–0 Ivy) and men’s tennis team (6–4, 0–0) brought the competition back to New Haven, where they hosted the University of Massachusetts (6–3, 1–0 A10) and Bryant University (6–12, 2–0 Northeast), respectively. 

On Saturday afternoon, the men claimed a 7–0 victory over the Bryant Bulldogs, losing only a single set across all six lines of singles and three lines of doubles. After a tight battle in both doubles and singles on Sunday, the women handedly defeated the University of Massachusetts with a 6–1 victory. 

“I think it was crucial that on so many courts we got off to a strong start in singles and kept the momentum up from doubles,” said Caroline Dunleavy ’22, the captain of the women’s team. “We really came together as a team and I think everyone did a great job of fighting for every point and never letting up.”

Chelsea Kung ’23 headed the women’s singles line-up, followed by Jessie Gong ’22, Dunleavy, Mirabelle Brettkelly ’25, Vivian Cheng ’23 and Rhea Shrivastava ’23. Kung and Gong played the first line of doubles, ahead of Shrivastava with Brettkelly and Kathy Wang ’22 with Dunleavy.

Brettkelly pointed out her and Shrivastava’s powerful net game in their No. 2 doubles match as an important factor in the win. She also noted the extreme adrenaline rush that ensued. 

“I thought we did a really great job with energy this weekend,” Rachel Kahan, the women’s team head coach, said. “We came out ready to play in the doubles and that carried over into the singles.” 

In an interview with the News, Kahan also highlighted Gong’s exciting first set, which ended in a tight 12–10 tiebreaker. 

Gong was most excited to be competing at home for the first time in over a month. Like Kahan, she thought her team did especially well “[keeping] energy high across the board against a fiesty team.”

Wang echoed Kahan and Gong’s sentiments on the energy of the weekend. She said her team “did a really good job of coming out to compete against UMass, which has always been a really solid team.”

Yale men’s tennis head coach Chris Drake recognized his squad’s “productive week of practice” where “the guys worked quite hard physically and with good intent” as the driving factor in their success on Saturday.

Walker Oberg ’25 also acknowledged his team’s productive practices in the week leading up to the match, highlighting how it continues “to perfect the execution for doubles-related plays and play calls.”

Michael Sun ’23 led the men’s team in singles, followed by Theo Dean ’24, Cody Lin ’22, Aidan Reilly ’25, Shervin Dehmoubed ’25 and Luke Neal ’25. Lin and Sun headed the team in doubles, ahead of Reilly with Dean and Neal with Dehmoubed.

Reilly was proud of how his team “[executed] [its] games with confidence and [got] a solid and commanding win.” 

The men’s squad dropped only a single set on Saturday. Although Dehmoubed (No. 5) lost his first set 1–6, he quickly returned with 6–3 and 6–0 wins in the second and third set, respectively. The No. 1 doubles team of Lin and Sun handedly defeated Bryant’s top line of doubles with a 6–0 victory.

This week, the men will host Monmouth University (9–1, 0–0 Metro Atlantic) on Wednesday and the University of Delaware on Saturday (3–6, 0–0 Colonial) at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. 

“This will be our first mid-week match, which always presents a different type of challenge as [the guys] will be coming from class, exams, etc.,” Drake said. “I am interested to see how the team responds.”

The women have two weeks off from matches, and will return to competition in Boca Raton against Florida Atlantic University (7–6, 0–0 CUSA) on Sunday, March 20. 

While most Yale College students will be on spring break, the women will fight their way through Florida, also challenging Florida International University (7–2, 0–0) on Tuesday, March 22 and the University of Central Florida (7–6, 0–0 AAC) on Thursday, March 24. 

For much of the men’s team, their match against Monmouth will be an opportunity to compete again against players from fall tournaments. Reilly commented that he “took a loss to a Monmouth player back in the fall” and is “looking forward to getting some revenge.”

Kahan shared that in their two-week break from matches, her team will focus “on fitness, as points outside tend to be longer” as well as running “drills that simulate playing outside.” Brettkelly also recognizes that her team will need to “focus on getting [themselves] ready to play matches in an outside, hotter environment.” 

Both teams will begin league play in less than four weeks, with the women hosting Brown (5–6, 0–0 Ivy) on April 2 and the men challenging the bears (7–6, 0–0) in Providence on April 3.