Season Preview: Men's Tennis Prepares for 2016-17 Season

HANOVER, N.H. – Dartmouth men's tennis will open the fall portion of its season this coming weekend at the Ivy Plus Tournament, an event that is co-hosted by Penn and Princeton from Friday, Sept. 23 through Sunday, Sept. 25.

“It's always exciting to get a new season going,” head coach Chris Drake said. “We consider every year a fresh start with a new team that will have to figure things out for itself. Of course, there are best practices, values and a culture of the team that we hope carries over from year to year, but now it will be up to this group to both carry forward and advance our standards. We have two new freshmen and 10 returning players that will have to embrace new roles on and off the court. We are excited and optimistic about what this group can do.”

THIS WEEKEND
For the past four seasons, the Big Green have opened their year at the Ivy Plus Tournament. This year, the event will feature players from all eight Ivy schools plus Buffalo, Drexel, Marist, Penn State, St. John's, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin and VCU, giving the Green conference experience well before Ivy play commences. The tournament will take place at two venues, with 64 players competing at Princeton and 48 at Penn.

The format will see a total of seven 16-player draws for singles, with four taking place at Princeton and three at Penn. Four doubles flights will also be at Princeton and three at Penn.

Play is set to begin at 9 a.m. each day. Friday will see singles play with the last series of matches set to begin at 2:30 p.m. Saturday will start with doubles at 9 a.m. and singles at 12:30 p.m. with the last matches beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday, doubles will start at 9 a.m. with singles beginning at 10 a.m. and the last round of matches starting at 11:30 a.m.

CLASS OF 2020
Dartmouth added two players to the roster as members of the Class of 2020. Making their collegiate debuts this fall are Charlie Broom and David Horneffer.

Quote from Coach Drake: “Charlie and David make up a very strong recruiting class for us. They are both competitive and they have expressed a deep desire to improve their games in order to help our team accomplish its goals. We have high standards when it comes to adding new members to our team. Charlie and David embody the traits we are looking for, and we are excited for their arrival.”

COACHING STAFF
Drake is entering his seventh season at the helm of the Big Green program. At the conclusion of the 2015-16 regular season, he was named the Ivy League Coach of the Year after the team finished second in the conference standings. He is assisted by Tom Boysen, who is in his third season at Dartmouth. Last year, he was named the ITA Northeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year.

2016-17 SCHEDULE
The Big Green will take part in seven tournaments and 19 dual matches throughout their busy 2016-17 season. After opening the year this weekend, Dartmouth will have a two-week break before hosting its only home event of 2016, the Dartmouth Invitational (Oct. 7-9).

From there, Dartmouth will head to Penn for the ITA Northeast Regional (Oct. 20-25) and the Harvard UTR Open (Oct. 28-30), before taking part in the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championship (Nov. 3-6) and the Gopher Invitational (Nov. 4-6).

After a two-month hiatus, the Big Green will jump right into the spring by hosting Bryant (Jan. 20), Indiana (Jan. 21) and the University of South Carolina (Jan. 28). They will be on the road for two against Minnesota (Feb. 3) and Iowa (Feb. 5) before returning to the Boss Tennis Center for matches against TCU (Feb. 10) and SMU (Feb. 11).

Dartmouth will play in one final tournament, the ECAC Winter Championship (Feb. 17-19) and will host Memphis (Feb. 24) to close the month.

The Green's four-match Spring Break will put them up against Rice (March 18), LSU (March 21), Tulane (March 22) and South Alabama (March 24), with the first of those matches taking place in Texas before they play the remaining three in Louisiana.

Upon returning from warmer weather, Dartmouth will kick off Ivy League play with a home match against Harvard (April 1). The Big Green will head to Providence to take on Brown (April 7) before hosting three straight matches against Yale (April 9), Columbia (April 15) and Cornell (April 16 – Senior Day). Dartmouth will close the regular season the following weekend on the road against Princeton (April 22) and Penn (April 23).

2015-16 IN REVIEW
Dartmouth wrapped up 2015-16 with an overall record of 18-9 and 6-1 in Ivy League play to place second. The Green, which were ranked for the entirety of the three-month season, faced 15 ranked opponents and defeated eight of them, including four that were higher ranked than them at the time.

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. The ITA also announced its award winners and Sakinis was named the Northeast Region Player of the Year and Tannenbaum received the Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award.

A few days later, the Green were announced as one of the teams in the field of 64 to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1997. Dartmouth faced Tulane in the first round and fell to the Green Wave, 4-0, but not before the Big Green forced four of the six singles matches to three sets.

Schedules