Yale Athletics

The Yale men’s tennis team will compete at home Thursday at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center in the ITA Division I New England Regional Championship. 

The New England Regional is the most important competition the Bulldogs will play at this point in the season. Victory could earn them a significant advantage at the NCAA Championship in November.

In order to make it to the NCAA tournament, singles players and doubles teams have to battle through their draws.

The ITA tournament 

The road to the finals is long and difficult, but the reward is a boon for competitors looking to secure the NCAA individual championship trophy. Making it to the finals of singles at ITA regionals earns a singles player a spot in the main draw of the NCAA Individuals Championships; for doubles, duos need to win in order to secure their spot in the NCAA Championship. 

Last year, Yale’s own Vignesh Gogineni ’26 fought his way to the finals, automatically qualifying for the NCAA singles championship. This year, the Elis are aiming to recreate that success in both singles and doubles.

Preparation

“In preparation, we have been competing against each other hard in practice to get match ready and into the mindset of competing,” team captain Eric Li ’26 wrote in a text. “We have been working on doubles for the past few weeks, looking to be more aggressive. We are looking to be more active at the net in doubles. In singles, we are looking to qualify as many guys as possible.” 

With development of the doubles teams and their tactics a priority for this season, the tennis team’s dynamic duos look to hit the court hard this weekend. So far, the doubles teams have been performing better, with last week’s record of 4-3 an improvement from the Chowderfest doubles record of 3-3.

On the singles side, Ugalde’s individualistic program — in which he works with all the team’s players individually on certain aspects of their game that need growth — has already posted good results. At Chowderfest, the Elis notched nine victories out of 12; at the Yale Invitational, seven out of 11. 

The players

Last year, Gogineni enjoyed success at the ITA tournament and looks poised to do so again. Two weeks ago, he competed at the ITA All-American Championship in Tulsa, Okla., where he made it to the round of 16 before falling into the consolation bracket. Two of his wins were over No. 8 Corey Craig of Florida State and No. 31 Petar Jovanovic of Mississippi State.

Edward Liao ’28 and Dylan Tsoi ’27 also went undefeated in both singles and doubles at Chowderfest. Freshman Varun Verma ’29 has also yet to drop a match. 

Playing at home puts added pressure on the Bulldogs, Ugalde said, but the audience will be an energy booster, which can help in the later rounds when the matches “carry the most weight and will be the toughest,” Gogineni said. 

The ITA Division I New England Regional Championship will begin this Thursday.