Martlets Fall on the Road

It was a hot day for tennis, but the Martlets exited the bus with positive energy and focus for what we knew would be a challenging match against Hotchkiss.  Unfortunately, we fell 1-6 to a talented Hotchkiss squad, but there were definitely some highlights.  Although our strong doubles play couldn’t quite hold up today, Sonny Darnowski ‘28 and Rohan Satpathy ‘27 continued to prove why they are such a solid doubles team, displaying great communication and strong net play despite the 4-8 loss.  After a clean sweep by Hotchkiss in doubles, we kicked off singles play with a very strong start from Issac Kwon ‘28 at #6, who narrowly lost the first set 4-6, before succumbing 2-6 in the second set to a steady and patient opponent.  At the top of the ladder, Will Jones ‘28 almost battled back from 0-6 first-set loss, tying up the second set before falling 4-6 to an opponent who played a very steady game, knowing just when to go in for the kill.  The rest of the top singles players fell quickly (at the 2, 3, and 4 spots) to very strong opponents.  However, while it might not have been match-defining for the team, Sam Herdeg’s ‘27 play at the #5 spot was the true highlight of the day.  See the Grit & Grace Award below for those details, but it was great to see the entire JV and varsity squads cheering Sam on in his final tiebreaker, to bring home the sole point for the Martlets.  We will be retracing our steps to Salisbury on Saturday, hopefully with more positive team results.

As mentioned above, the Grit & Grace award goes to Sam Herdeg.  Sam was well-matched against his #5 singles opponent, leading to some very long rallies and battles for every game.  After more than an hour, Sam fell 6-7 in the first set, losing the tiebreaker 3-7.  As the second set kicked off under the blazing sun, Sam knew this would be a match of endurance in addition to skill, and he wanted the win.  After trading service games for the first half of the set, Sam went up a break to serve for the set at 5-3.  Dropping an early game lead to head into deuce, Sam closed out the set (6-3) with some strong serving and steady ground shots.  That led into a “super tiebreaker” to decide the match, now with a full cheering section.  The crowd was just the energy Sam needed, grabbing revenge for his earlier tiebreaker loss — he didn't lose a single point, winning the tiebreaker 10-0.  For the entire match, Sam didn’t give up on a single point, ran down every ball, and showed how to win with both grit and grace.