Bill Ewen's Last Hopkins Undefeated Tennis Season

5/20/2012
Hopkins Rules Loomis Courts vs. Roxbury Latin, completing unprecedented three-peat as New England Prep School Team Tennis Champions!

On Sunday, May 20, the Hopkins boys varsity tennis team traveled by bus up Interstate 91 for the final round of the New England Prep School Team Championships to the campus of Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Ct., to take on a Roxbury Latin team with a dual meet record of 17--1. Hopkins School, which was founded back in 1660, found itself in the rare situation of playing an even older school. Roxbury Latin was founded 15 years earlier back in 1645, and both schools have been operating continuously since their foundings. So these two schools together have an amazing combined age of 719 years. But the tennis being played was anything but ancient, as balls whizzed back and forth with bullet-like speed. Hopkins entered this contest with an unblemished 14--0 dual meet record of its own. So the match promised to be a real shoot-out.

First on tap was doubles play. Russell Einbinder and Brian Astrachan, playing #1 doubles for Hopkins, put on an awesome display of power and accuracy as they overwhelmed the Roxbury Latin team of J. B. Gough and Cam Ferguson, 8--0. At #2 doubles, the brother--brother tandem of Nolan and Sayer Paige began well, but then the Roxbury Latin team began to creep back into the match with some accurately placed shots and by trying to direct as many shots as possible away from the power volleys of Nolan. But then Nolan stepped in, poaching and closing in on volleys while his brother Sayer played steady and accurate cross court ground strokes to set up the kill by his brother, and enabling their team to win 8--4. At #3 doubles, Alec Bartimer and Peter Conklin continued their winning ways by knocking off the hard hitting but sometimes less steady team of Christian O'Connor and Matthew Wang, 8--3. Alec and Peter were successful in coaxing errors out of their opponents by hitting hard and accurately to the back corners of the court.

If the Hopkins team thought that Roxbury Latin was going to go away quietly in the remaining singles matches, they were badly mistaken. Players from both teams prepared to dig in for the long haul. J. B. Gough began hitting blazing forehands away from Hopkins' Nolan Paige at #1 singles, and the play was even for a while before Nolan was eventually able to begin to force more errors from his determined opponent. At #2 singles, Roxbury Latin's Cam Ferguson was slowly and gradually beginning to gain an advantage over Hopkins' Russell Einbinder by keeping him far behind the back baseline. Play was also nip and tuck at #3 singles, as Brian Astrachan's all court game was matched by Joey Haig's left handed hard hit and deep forehand drives. And at #4 singles, it was not uncommon to see the ball going back and forth over the net 25 or more times as each player (Sayer Paige from Hopkins and Christian O'Connor from Roxbury Latin tried to work angles alternating with hard down the line shots and occasional volleys and overheads to win hard earned points from one another. And the #5 match between Hopkins' Michael Bartimer and Roxbury's Perry Hart turned into a topspin duel with lengthy exchanges from the baseline. Because Loomis had only 5 courts at the northern end of their campus, the #6 match between Hopkins' Alec Bartimer and Roxbury Latin's Andrew Wang was forced to wait until the first open court came up.

Eventually, it was #1 player and senior co-captain Nolan Paige who drew first singles blood by defeating J. B. Gough, 6--3, 6--1, as J. B. found himself unable to match the earlier intense pace of play that he had established. Next to win for Hopkins was #4 Sayer Paige, as his continual pressure on his strong left handed opponent, eventually just wore him down, with Sayer coming through with a 6--2, 6--2 score, even though the match took nearly 2 hours to complete. This put Hopkins into a nice 3--0 team lead, needing just one more match to claim the coveted New England Prep School Team Championship for the third consecutive year. But senior Brian Astrachan at #3, though he had moved ahead 6--3, 5--2, suddenly found himself running on empty and became more passive, as Joey Haig began to take advantage of that fact by putting away more forehand ground strokes, and soon the score became knotted at 5--5. Just then, Brian heard of the completion of Sayer's match, and he knew that he could clinch the match for Hopkins if he were to become more aggressive. Some well placed serves to the corners of the service courts, accompanied by topspin drives to opposite corners, earned him a 6--5 lead, winning his service game at love. Brian's opponent also heard of Hopkins' victory at #4 singles, and suddenly the weight of the world seemed upon him. Ground strokes that sprayed into the alleys, along with a double fault, put the Roxbury Latin player down love-forty, with three match and championship points staring him in the face. He saved the first one, but then at 15-40, he sent a forehand drive long to give Brian game, set, and match, and the New England Prep School Team Title to Hopkins School by a 4--0 score that gives little indication to the intensity of the individual matches. Play was stopped with Roxbury Latin's Cam Ferguson leading Russell Einbinder, 6--4, 4--3, with Hopkins' Michael Bartimer leading Roxbury's Perry Hart, 6--4, 2--2, and with Hopkins' Alec Bartimer leading Roxbury's Andrew Wang 2--1 in the first set.

Hopkins has one final match, against Taft School of Watertown, on Wednesday May 23, which will conclude its stunningly successful season. Hopkins' five starting graduating seniors--Brian Astrachan, Alec Bartimer, Michael Bartimer, Russell Einbinder, and Nolan Paige--are to be congratulated on compiling an incredible overall dual meet record of 58--4 as a team over the past four years! Wow!!!

With best regards,