Seniors Ludovic Walter and Jonathan Stokke ended the fall season with strong performances for the men's tennis team, finishing second and fourth, respectively, at the ITA Indoor Nationals in Columbus, Ohio.
"This is the toughest tournament to get into of all the college events," assistant coach Ramsey Smith said. "It has the top 32 players in the country, and most had to win regional tournaments just to get in. For us to have our top two players finish in the top four at this event is a great sign and will give us a really good one-two punch heading into the spring season."
Walter, ranked second in the preseason ITA singles rankings, faced five opponents in the tournament, four of whom were seeded in the top 10. To get to the finals, Walter defeated Brandon Wai of Yale, fifth-ranked Jerry Makowski of Texas A&M, Baylor's Lars Poerschke and ninth-ranked K.C. Corkery of Stanford.
In the finals, however, Walter ran into UCLA's Ben Kohlloeffel, ranked third in the nation and seeded fourth in the tournament. The first set of the match went back and forth, coming to a 5-5 tie before Kohlloeffel was able to break Walter's serve and win the set, 7-5.
"The first set was very tight," Smith said. "I actually thought [Walter] was in control most of the set.... It could have gone either way. He was two points from winning, and if he had won that set I think things would have gone differently."
Walter, however, was unable to recover and lost the second set, 6-1. The finish was still encouraging for the 2004 All-American.
"I played with a lot of confidence for the whole tournament," Walter said. "[Kohlloeffel] returned better than I did, and that was the difference in the match. It was good for me to win those [earlier] matches because I lost a couple of matches early in the season to guys who played really well. I was never really down on myself, I just kept working hard and ended up playing really well this weekend."
Stokke, on the other hand, came into the tournament confident and playing well, making his first appearance at the event. After losing his first match of the tournament, he advanced to the finals of the consolation bracket, where he fell to national No. 1 Ryler DeHeart of Illinois. Stokke won the first set, 7-6, in a tiebreak, but DeHeart took the final two, 6-2, 6-4.
"Jon had another battle today, and it came down to one break at the end of the third set," Smith said. "He hung in there until the very last point, and the whole time I really thought he was going to pull it out. This was by far Jon's best fall. For him to get to the back-draw of the finals was really impressive and a reflection of how hard he has been working."
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