Both the men and women’s tennis teams look to get off to a fast start to the 2015 to 2016 season with their fall lineup of exhibition matches. The seasons begins on Sept. 19 at the Middlebury Invitational for the men and the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals on Sept. 25 for the women. 

Last season, the men finished with a record of 9-10, and the women finished with a similar record of 11-10. Both teams are looking to improve on those records, despite the departure of a combined six graduating students between the two teams. The men got off to a very slow start last year in competitive play, starting the spring season 1-5 before picking up their play in the latter half of the season. Ryan Bunis ’18 commented that he “thought we didn’t do as well as we were hoping. We got a national ranking, but a lot of the big matches we didn’t perform our best. Some guys were fighting through injuries so that was tough as well. But we worked really hard in the off-season and our team culture and camaraderie was the best I had ever seen it.” 

Three of the five losses came during the team’s trip to California in February, where they were defeated by California Lutheran University, the University of Redlands and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Upon returning home, the men added road losses to Middlebury College and Stevens Institute of Technology to their tally. Their only win in that six-game stretch came against Chapman University, the first match during the team’s trip to California. 

A big loss for the Judges was that of their two captains from the previous season. While Bunis acknowledged the loss, he was optimistic, saying, “I think our captains, Danny Lubarsky and Brian Granoff, will fit into the role nicely.”

The women’s team got off to an even worse start than the men’s team, going 1-3 on their trip to California before returning to the east coast to add four more losses to their record against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury; Wesleyan University and Tufts University. The women turned their season around against Bates College, where they won a close 5-4 match and proceeded to go 9-1 to finish off their season of non-championship play. 

Unfortunately the momentum ended in the University Athletic Association Championships, where both teams finished in fifth place. 

 Bunis and the squad are looking forward to the upcoming year. “I think Brandeis Tennis can be a Top 10 team competing for an NCAA spot at the UAA conference tournament, no question. … Everyone is hungry to put Brandeis Tennis on the map.”