After sweeping this week's competition, the UConn men's tennis team returns to tournament play this weekend when they will travel to Brown University for the Northeast Intercollegiate Invitational.
Players from more than twenty schools in the northeast region will join the Huskies at the event. Many of the Ivies, including Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, and host Brown, will be present, along with other notables like Big East rival, Villanova, and local foe Boston College.
The tournament, which is scheduled to take place over the course of the
entire weekend, will consist of several flights for singles and doubles play. All the players in the tournament are guaranteed at least three singles and at least three doubles matches. Similar to the Fairfield Doubles Invitational, the format will include an initial three draws of round-robin play within each flight, with the top teams or players in each flight advancing. Respective winners of each flight have the chance to play up to a total of six possible matches.
Despite the tournaments being geared more toward individual performance,
head coach Glenn Marshall believes there is a lot to be gained from a team
aspect by playing in the invitationals.
"Match play experience. That's the No. 1 reason we do these invitationals,"
Marshall said. "It's one thing to practice every day against your teammates, but when you get into the tournament setting, all those other intangibles-the extra level of concentration, the toughness-all those things come out."
UConn enters the tournament coming off a perfect 2-0 week. On Tuesday, the Huskies traveled to Hartford where they cruised to victory by a score of 7-0. The following day, the team returned home to face Siena. The match ended in a near-identical result, as UConn once again swept away its competition 7-0.
Even with the quick start, Marshall said that he and assistant coach Michael Louis are still tinkering with the team's lineup. He plans to use all ten players in this weekend's invitational in hopes of gaining a greater sense of where his team is as a whole.
Freshman Wei Lin, who debuted Wednesday against Siena in the second doubles spot, is one player whom the coaching staff is eager to see perform this weekend. According to Marshall, Lin lost a couple weeks due to a shoulder injury. He believes the tournament will be a good a way to see how well the rookie is making the transition to collegiate play.
"[Lin] has done well for us," said Marshall. "He's a very talented kid. He has what I call an 'all-court game.' He gets up to the net well, he has good hands, a good feel, and he really moves well. It was great that he could get his feet wet in doubles, but the tournament should be a great test for him since it's the first time he'll be by himself."
The tournament will have a total of nine singles flights. Currently, they have set their lineup for Flights A through E, with junior Andrew Marcus, senior Joe Goldstein, sophomore Scott Warden, sophomore Jai Yoon, and sophomore Dave Adams competing in that order. Senior Tom Cook, sophomores Ricardo Cardona, Matt Burns, Nic Visinski and Lin will also compete in the invitational.
All ten players will play in the doubles portion of the tournament as well, with Marcus and Warden once again expected to be in Flight A.
"With the flighted tournament," Louis said, "all the guys in each flight are pretty much at the same level. This weekend should be a really great test for us."
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