By David Gibb
Thursday the 16th marked the opening day of both the Men’s and Women’s CAA Tennis Championships on the campus of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Hofstra entered the tournament with an uphill battle ahead, as the Men’s team was seeded eighth and the Women’s team tenth, with both slated to face Drexel in the opening round.
The day started auspiciously for the Men’s team as they took the first two singles matches from the Dragons. Nenad Radakovic and Stian Tvedt both lost the first sets of their matches, but then both charged from behind to give the Pride a commanding 2-0 lead for the day. Tvedt, a sophomore, said of his match, “I started off slow… I lost the first set pretty easily, and then in the second set I was down, but I came down like a champ and I won it. So it was a good comeback.”
The Men’s team did indeed look like champs, especially after Matthew Wacks won the number four match in straight sets to put the Pride ahead 3-0, essentially on the hill to advance to the next round. “We just needed one more win,” Tvedt explained.
However, things began to slowly unravel for the Pride Men’s team as they lost the remainder of their singles matches, resulting in a 3-3 tie with Drexel entering doubles play. “We had to win the doubles round. In the end it came down to that,” said Tvedt.
Unfortunately, Hofstra lost the first and third doubles matches 8-5 and 8-4 to the Dragons, causing for the cancellation of the remainder of the second match and an early return home for the Men’s team. Tvedt, one half of the doubles team who lost the first match, reflected, “We fought hard, but we didn’t prevail.”
The Women’s team also endured a tough day, as the singles match-ups at numbers two and four ended in straight sets favoring Drexel. However, because of a roster issue, the Pride could only afford to lose one more match before being sent home. Senior Stacy Kent took the time to explain the problem: “We only have 5 singles players, so we have to forfeit a doubles match and a singles match. To win doubles to you have to win two out of three, so the other team already has the advantage.”
With the forfeits in place and two matches over quickly, it was Stacy herself who was left on the court, representing the Pride’s last chance. Unfortunately, in the last match of her career at Hofstra, Kent fell 6-4, 6-4, eliminating the Women’s Team from the CAA Championships. “It was disappointing to lose my last collegiate match, but she was a tough opponent,” Kent said of Drexel’s Anahita Jagtiani.
Obviously a first-day, first-round exit from the conference tournament was a disappointing outcome for both the Men’s and Women’s teams, but many are already trying to put the losses behind them and move on towards next year. While senior leaders like Stacy Kent will be gone, the remaining players on the team are looking forward to marked improvement next year. When asked what he wanted to achieve going into his junior year, Stian Tvedt said, “I hope to improve my singles record, but of course I want Hofstra to win the CAA most of all.”