No. 41 Dartmouth to Open NCAA Tournament Against Tulane

NCAA First Round
Saturday, May 14: No. 41 Dartmouth (18-8) vs. No. 31 Tulane (15-8)
Location: Chapel Hill, N.C. – Cone Kenfield Tennis Center
Time: 9 a.m.
Live Stats

THIS WEEKEND
The Dartmouth men's tennis team will open the postseason as it travels to North Carolina for the Chapel Hill Regional of the NCAA Tournament, which begins on Friday. The No. 41 Big Green will take on the No. 31 Tulane Green Wave in the opening round of the tournament on Saturday.

REGULAR SEASON IN A NUTSHELL
A lot has been happening in the tennis world as of late. Dartmouth wrapped up the regular season on April 23 with 4-1 wins over Harvard and Yale on the road, bringing its winning streak to six straight. With an Ivy League record of 6-1, the Green finished in second place behind Columbia, which ended the year with a perfect 7-0 mark. Dartmouth, which was ranked for the entirety of the three-month season, faced 15 ranked opponents in 2016, defeating eight of them, including four that were higher ranked than the Big Green at the time.

AWARDS
At the conclusion of the season, five members of the team received post-season awards from the conference office. Dovydas Sakinis was tabbed to the All-Ivy first team for singles, while Brendan Tannenbaum and George Wall were on the first team for doubles and Max Schmidt was selected to the second team for doubles play. In addition to those four players, Chris Drake was named Coach of the Year.

EVEN MORE AWARDS
A few days after the All-Ivy awards were announced, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) announced its award winners and three Dartmouth names appeared on that list. Sakinis was named the Northeast Region Player of the Year, Tannenbaum received the Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award and Tom Boysen was tabbed the Assistant Coach of the Year.

MAKING HISTORY
After having to wait almost two weeks after the final dual match of the season to hear their NCAA fate, the Big Green were announced as one of the teams in the field of 64 to make it to the tournament. The last time Dartmouth made it was in 1997. The Green wrapped up that season with an overall record of 17-5 and went 8-1 in Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association (EITA) matches to win the conference title. On May 9, 1997, the Green headed to Cambridge to face Harvard, falling to the Crimson, 4-0.

SCOUTING TULANE
The Green Wave is returning to the NCAA for the first time since 2005 and the 10th time in program history. Tulane made nine straight appearances in the tournament from 1997-2005 and its best finish came in 2003 when it reached the Round of 16. The Green Wave had a tough spring that featured 16 ranked teams and collected top-50 wins against the likes of No. 30 San Diego, No. 36 LSU, No. 41 Memphis, No. 48 Denver and No. 49 Harvard.

LAST TIME AGAINST THE GREEN WAVE
Noticeably absent from Tulane's list of ranked victories is Dartmouth. On Jan. 31, the Green hosted their sixth consecutive home match in a two-week span, facing the Green Wave. The first and only time the two teams had met (March 27, 2015 in New Orleans), Tulane had walked away with a 4-0 victory. On that chilly January day in Hanover, the Green Wave took the doubles point and, from there, Dartmouth and Tulane traded points until it came down to Tannenbaum and Alex Van Cott at the No. 3 singles position. Van Cott took the first set, but Tannenbaum got the second to send the match to the deciding third set. The Green senior took the lead and ran with it, defeating the Tulane player, 6-2, in the final set to give the victory to Dartmouth.

SCHEDULE/TICKET INFO
The first and second rounds will be held on Friday, May 13 and Saturday, May 14 at the Case Tennis Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After the Dartmouth/Tulane match at 9 a.m. and the UNC vs. College of Charleston tilt at noon on Saturday, the regional final between the winner of match 1 and the winner of match 2 will take place at 1 p.m. on Sunday, with the winner advancing to the NCAA Round of 16. Tickets for the event are $5 for adults and children 6 and under are free. Tickets will be good for all matches, both men and women, on a single day.

Schedules