Recently the USTA/ITA started a new program called the Campus Showdown. These events are one-day, open tennis events held on college campuses. I figured hosting a campus showdown would be a great way for some of the guys to play extra matches. I didn’t figure on the alumni getting wind of the event and coming out to play! Saturday’s Whitman Campus Showdown will feature 8 Whitman alumni, 6 current team members and 2 PNW junior players. So really this is a Whitman tennis alumni showdown! Continue reading »
Feb 042011
Jan 312011
The first EVER Whitman tennis alumni reunion is now officially a go. Mark off Friday Nov 4 – Sunday Nov 6on your calendars for a fun filled weekend in Las Vegas! Doesn’t matter the year of graduation or which Whitman coach you played for (Coach Burgess, Coach Furman, Coach Thomas, Coach Snider or myself), all are invited!
If you are interested in participating in the reunion please send me an email. Special thanks to reunion chairs Justin Hayashi, Matt Solomon, and Etienne Moshevich.
Oct 052010
Over the weekend we had our annual team backpacking trip. For some on the team it was their first time camping and for many it was their first time backpacking. For me the backpacking trip is a combination of two things I love — coaching and exploring the outdoors. I find this trip to be a very powerful team experience. There is nothing like sitting around a campfire while being miles away from other people and at a place where there is no cell phone service, no electricity, no email, no twitter or facebook. Freshman Will Husky summed it well when in the middle of trip he made the observation “I never realized how noisy my life is.” Continue reading »
Mar 212010
At our Pomona match yesterday we were treated to a visit from Adrian “Cib” Cibilich. Cib played tennis at Whitman in 1950 and was pleased to report that Whitman went 5-1 that year and won the singles and doubles conference titles.
Cib wasn’t the only Whittie in the crowd — Justin Hayashi ’09 and Mark Scoyners ’76 also helped cheer the team to victory.
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The Whitman College men’s and women’s tennis teams have earned academic honors from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association for the 2008-09 school year.Ten players on the Whitman men’s team, along with four members of the women’s squad, also received individual recognition.
The team award requires a cumulative team grade point average (gpa) of 3.2 on a 4.0 scale. For the NCAA Division III level, the ITA handed out team honors to 35 schools in the men’s division and 72 institutions in the women’s division.
To be named an ITA Scholar-Athlete, a player must be a varsity letter-winner and have a minimum gpa of 3.5 for the academic year.
Reid Bennett and Justin Hayashi, both of whom graduated in May, are among players on the Whitman men’s team who earned individual honors.
Other ITA Scholar-Athletes for the Whitman men are juniors Christoph Fuchs, Nadeem Kassam, Thomas Roston and Dan Wilson, sophomores Chris Bailey, Quin Miller and Etienne Moshevich, and freshman Conor Holton-Burke.
Fuchs, Hayashi and Wilson netted individual recognition for a third straight season. Bailey is now a two-time winner.
Both Fuchs and Hayashi earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District honors this past spring, and Fuchs was named to the Academic All-American Third Team.
On the women’s side, Katie Oost and Alex Robinson capped their Whitman careers by earning ITA Scholar-Athlete honors.
It was the second award in four seasons for Oost, who will stay with the tennis program as an assistant coach this academic year as she applies to graduate programs in the field of psychology.
Divneet Kaur, a Whitman junior this past season, and first-year player teammate Emily Rolston also earned ITA individual kudos.
Whitman’s tennis coaches are Jeff Northam (men) and John Hein (women).
Congratulations to Justin and Christoph for receiving Academic All-District honors! Below is the official press release from Whitman’s SID Dave Holden
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Justin Hayashi and Christoph Fuchs, captains of the Whitman College men’s tennis team, have earned spots on ESPN The Magazine’s Academic All-District At-Large First Team.
Hayashi and Fuchs, who helped Whitman win its second straight Northwest Conference (NWC) title earlier this spring, are two of 11 athletes chosen for the men’s at-large team in the College Division of District VIII. The district includes all NCAA Div. II/Div. III and NAIA schools in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, as well as British Columbia.
The at-large teams represent student athletes in a variety of sports, including golf, skiing, gymnastics, ice hockey, swimming, lacrosse and tennis.
Players on all-district at-large teams from around the nation are now eligible for election to the Academic All-America team. The College Sports Information Directors of America (Co-SIDA) administers the nominating and voting process for the Academic All-America program, which is in its 58th year and has honored about 15,000 students at all levels for all recognized NCAA sports.
Hayashi and Fuchs were key contributors this spring as Whitman rolled through a third consecutive 16-0 NWC regular season. Whitman was 24-5 as part of a season that included a third straight appearance in the NCAA Division III national tournament.
Hayashi, an Asian Studies major from Kirkland, Wash., made his biggest contribution this past spring in doubles. He and doubles partner Dan Wilson swept through an undefeated regular season, winning their first 17 matches. After losing for the first time at the NWC championships, they stormed through the first three rounds of the prestigious Ojai Valley tournament, knocking off the top-seeded team in the process before finally falling in the semifinals.
Hayashi finished his senior season with a 21-3 record in doubles. He also won all six of his matches in singles. His play in singles was limited by Whitman’s relatively deep roster.
A year ago, Hayashi organized a free tennis clinic for youngsters in Vancouver, B.C. He and several of his teammates gave the three-day clinic during their 2008 Spring Break.
Hayashi, who speaks fluent Japanese, worked the past two summers as a sales and/or marketing intern at Tokyo’s Jinji Tennis Center and New York’s Eastbrook Capital Group. He graduates from Whitman on Sunday and starts a one-year internship in July with the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.
As a senior at Whitman, Hayashi served as a trustee with the Whitman Investment Club and as a senator in the student government. He also held a number positions the past four years as an intern in the Whitman Admission office.
Hayashi, the son of Hiroko Hayashi of Kirkland, Wash., is a graduate of Seattle’s Lakeside School.
Fuchs, a biology major (chemistry minor), has maintained a 3.92 cumulative grade point average at Whitman, which ranks him in the top five of all varsity athletes on campus.
Playing his third season of college tennis this spring, Fuchs was a regular this spring in both singles and doubles. He was 9-3 in singles, which included a 7-1 record against NWC opponents, and 9-8 in doubles (6-1 NWC).
Fuchs, who has senior academic status at Whitman, will not complete his degree requirements until the 2010 spring semester, when he plans to play his fourth college season. He plans to pursue medical school studies after his Whitman graduation.
Fuchs worked last summer at the University of Louisville’s Brown Cancer Center, assisting with breast cancer research aimed at developing predictive tests for cancer’s responsiveness to treatment. He plans to write an honors thesis on his research, which was funded through the Whitman Internship Fund and the University of Louisville’s Institute for Molecular Diversity and Drug Design.
In the summer of 2007, Fuchs was a volunteer nurse’s aide at a hospital in Offenburg, Germany, as part of a program required of German students for medical school eligibility. Fuchs, who is fluent in German, handled duties ranging from feeding patients and taking vital signs to shadowing physicians on their rounds and assisting with surgeries.
This summer Fuchs plans to shadow physicians at a hospital near his home in La Center, Wash., and volunteer at a free medical clinic.
While at Whitman, Fuchs has mentored two at-risk boys as part of the Friends of Walla Walla program.
Fuchs, who was home schooled before coming to Whitman, is the son of Dr. Axel Fuchs and Valerie Fuchs of La Center
Apr 272009
Sorry for the late post. Was a long couple days of matches and travel. Dan and Justin had an unbelievable run at the 109th Ojai tournament. In the quarters they faced off against the #1 team in the region (#1 from UC Santa Cruz). What a great test for the Dan and Justin — they would get the chance to play against the very best in the West. Well they certainly rose to the challenge! Match started off well for the Whitman duo as they went up a break 2-1. However the Slug team immediately broke back leveling the match at 2-2. I can’t exactly explain what happened next but Dan and Justin played great tennis winning the next 6 games! Great victory — beating the #1 team in the region 8-2 wow!
Unfortunately the semi’s were a complete role reversal. Tennis can be strange — one minute play great and the next not able to find the court. I think Dan and Justin had a bit of a let down and ran into a very tough Washington University team. We really struggled with 1st serve percentage and returns (to be fair the WA U team served incredibly well). In the end the Wash U ran away with an 8-1 victory. Dan and Justin were pretty disappointed, they were one match away from the finals (and the opportunity to play at the famous Libby Park) but what a great tournament! They advanced further at the Ojai than any other Whitman player ever has!
We are now in a holding pattern waiting next Monday’s announcement of the NCAA pairings.
Apr 252009
Day one complete at The Ojai. Yesterday it felt more like Seattle than Southern California — cloudy, chance of rain and temperatures in the low 60′s. Unfortunately our Seattle boys (Dan and Justin) didn’t feel at home in singles and dropped their opening singles matches. Dan lost to a very tough #2 player from Chapman 6-3, 6-4. Dan struggled a bit and didn’t play his best tennis. In the first set he was broke early and could never get a look at breaking his opponent. In the second set Dan twice went up breaks but he struggled to hold serve. For the record the Chapman player is very good and went on to beat the #9 seed (#1 from Redlands) 7-6, 6-1. Justin played incredibly streaky in his opening match. He won the first set 6-0 and then lost 3-6, 7-5. Considering he hasn’t played a singles match in over a month he played some very good tennis..at times. However at times he would also drop three to four points in a row which eventually doomed his chances of winning the match.
In doubles the Seattle boys fared better. In their first match they were down a break against the #2 Pomona team before winning 8-5. In the second match against Cal Lu’s #3 team they played much better. Match started off pretty close with both teams holding serve. However at 4-4 Dan and Justin picked up their intensity and court movement (crossing more) and won the last 4 games. Very good effort for them to bounce back from disappointing singles losses and win two tough doubles matches.
At 3pm today they play the #1 team from UC Santa Cruz (and #1 seeds). As usual I will twitter updates to the blog.
Apr 242009
Currently at the Ojai tournament in Southern California with Dan Wilson and Justin Hayashi. Both are playing singles and doubles in this incredible event. I will twitter match updates during the day. For those that received blog postings via email, the twitter updates can be found on the main blog page Whitman Tennis Blog.
Apr 202009
Sorry about not getting this out yesterday. Weather was too nice to be inside and replacing a spring shackle on my Jeep became a major project that included cutting the frame, modifying brackets, and the removal of auxiliary parts.
This year’s NWC tournament certainly provided us some challenges both on and off the court. Even before our first match we had some funky issues to deal with. Since there are no warm-up courts at the Yakima Tennis Club we went off-site before our matches to get loosened up and hit a few balls. During this warm up Nadeem got hit in the head and broke his glasses. Luckily he was prepared and had an extra pair of glasses in the hotel. Unfortunately the van wouldn’t start! Now we are stuck at a public park with a broken pair of glasses and no way to get back to the hotel or even to the tournament site. Fortunately Coach Ann was driving six guys from Walla Walla that morning so we waited for her to arrive. Once she arrived, Nadeem and I jumped into the van to go back the hotel. However, Jake left his rackets and shoes in the van and didn’t have his equipment to warm-up with. What a crazy morning! In the end we were able to shuttle people to lunch and to the tournament site. Coach Ann had to do the dirty work and find a repair shop, tow-truck and shuttle all while being left with a broken van. For the record Brett Hall Chevelot is Yakima was AWESOME…they towed the van, provided a shuttle for Ann and provided a complimentary Enterprise van.
Because of morning rain the tournament was running a few hours behind schedule. The extra hours allowed us to get eye-glasses, everyone feed, equipment to the correct players and everyone shuttled to the Yakima Tennis Club. Without that delay it would have been an incredibly stressful morning.
The NWC conference is a six-team tournament with the #1 seeds (us) and the #2 seeds (PLU) getting byes. Our first match was against Willamette (#4 seed) who defeated #5 seed Whitworth. As great has the facility is at the Yakima Tennis Club it can be very windy. Friday was no exception — as my sailing friends would say it was “blowing like stink”.
Against Willamette we didn’t play our best doubles and they really brought their top game. In fact at one time we were down breaks at all three doubles! Last time we played Willamette we won the doubles by the scores of 8-1, 8-1, 8-0. What a change to be looking down the barrel of being swept. To use another sailing term (approriate because of the wind) we were able to “right our ship” and take #2 and #3 doubles. At #1 Justin and Dan played pretty nervous with the dual-pressure of an undefeated season on the line and playing at the #1 doubles spot. Even though they broke back at the end of the match to serve at 7-8 they were broke at love losing the match 9-7.
Singles wasn’t great but we started better in the wind and hitting our stride. Chris was down early in his match to the talented #1 from Willamette 2-6, but was able to win the second 6-3 and was up a break in the 3rd when the team match was finished. The junior trio of Dan Wilson, Nadeem Kassam and Jake Cappel all won in straight sets to clinch the match for us. Because of the tournament delay the match was stopped (normally we play out the matches).
Whitman 5 PLU 1
The victory over Willamette set up a show down against #2 seeds PLU. PLU played a great semi-final match against Linfield (#3 seed). I knew the PLU vs Linfield was going to be tight and I figured whomever had the lead after doubles would win the match. As usual Linfield played great doubles and took two of the doubles. However PLU swept all six singles match giving them the victory. What a great effort by PLU. Also gives a strong indication of how much better PLU is playing (we beat Linfield 5-4 and 7-2).
Weather wasn’t an issue in the finals…it was a beautiful day. It was also a beautiful day to have our full line-up playing for the first time all year. Because of injuries and illness we have never had our top singles and doubles line-up play a match. Nothing like the conference finals to finally have a full line-up!
In doubles we were able to quickly go up breaks at #2 and #3 doubles. At #1 Dan and Justin had their hands full against a very hot PLU team (on Friday they had beaten the #10 team in the region 8-0) and were down 1-4. At #3 Nadeem and ET fired up the entire team with a pretty quick 8-3 victory. #2 doubles Christoph and Quin won six of the final eight games posting a 8-4 victory. With everyone watching, Dan and Justin picked up their game playing aggressive doubles and bombing overheads. After being down 1-4 Justin had serve and broke at love putting the match back on serve. At 5-6 Justin had a quick hold and they broke the NWC Conference player of the Year (Joel Trudel) giving Dan the opportunity to serve for the match. Playing on the stadium court infront huge a crowd with the match on the line, I was so proud of how Dan and Justin embraced the moment and served out the match. One of the best proud coaching moments!
The sweep in doubles turned out to be huge. PLU continued their great singles play and put up an incredible match. I was really impressed with the PLU team. This is a team we had beaten 8-1 and 7-2 this season, we were up 3-0 after doubles and they didn’t bow their heads or have any negative energy on the court. They came after us…hard!
The key to the match came down to the experience of juniors Jake Cappel and Nadeem Kassam. Both of these young men have played in the conference finals and NCAA National tournament. They were also matched up against two players who had never played in a conference final. Both had solid first sets with Jake winning 6-1 and Nadeem coming back from 0-3 before reeling off 6 straight games. Those were the only 1st sets we won: #1 (ET), #2 (Chris), #3 (Dan) and #6 (Adriel) all dropped their 1st sets! The final match score doesn’t indicate the competitive nature of this match.
About 45 minutes into the singles we started to hit our stride. Jake finished out his match 6-1, 6-3 giving us a 4-0 lead. His quick victory really put the pressue squarely on every PLU player: they all had to win or the match was over. At #3 singles Dan had a great rally — after being down 0-4 in the first he came back to even the match 4-6, 6-2. At #2 Chris overcame a horrible start and gutted his way into a 3rd set 2-6, 7-6 (10-8). At #6 Adriel ran into a red hot Justin Peterson but was able to even the match 2-6, 6-2. For the record Justin is a great player who is capable of producing unbelievable tennis. In fact last year he played #3 for PLU. As all these matches were splitting sets ET was locked in a battle with PLU #1 player. ET ended up dropping the 1st set 7-5 but had a ton of break points that he couldn’t convert. Hats off to Joel Trudel. I’ve been around some high level tennis and I’ve never seen anyone serve themselves out of trouble the way Joel did on Saturday. Every break point he was able to bomb in a 1st serve. He certainly deserved to be named NWC Player of the Year.
As we were splitting sets at #2, #3 and #6, Nadeem clinched the match with a 6-3 6-3 victory. What a great win for Deem. In the past he has struggled closing out matches. Today Deem showed his maturity, composure and improved play. Once he got up in each set he was able to play his best tennis closing out each set! Very gratifying to see Deem clinch the match.
With the match over Dan and Chris won match breakers giving us a 7-0 lead. At #1 ET lost 6-4, 7-5 and at #6 Adriel lost 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. Even though ET lost it was unbelievable to have him back in the line-up. His fire, passion and love of the game (and competing) inspires the entire team.
We finished the year with undefeated conference season and repeat conference championships!
We now wait a couple weeks to see where we were be shipping off for the NCAA team tournament.
Whitman 7 PLU 2