Light Blue singles players shine at ITA Indoors

While Ivy League tennis does not get underway till the spring, the Lions have been making headlines in the tennis circuit in the last two weeks of the fall season. Junior women’s tennis player Nicole Bartnik won the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast Regionals to receive an automatic bid to the 2011 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, hosted by Columbia at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York. On the men’s side, senior co-captain Haig Schneiderman caused a huge upset at the indoor event en route to a quarterfinal finish.
The senior beat a top-50 player in Texas A&M senior Alexis Klegou 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1 to advance to the round of 16, and then came from behind to upset the No.6 seed and No. 5 nationally-ranked Chase Buchanan of Ohio State 6-7, 6-2, 6-2.

“It was an exciting result,” Schneiderman said. “I played really well and it was nice to see that I could play at that level. Everyone came to the match—all my teammates—so there was a huge home court advantage that was sick and gave me a little bit of an edge. I had some confidence from the day before, and I felt like I could win the match before I got on the court. That was a huge step for me because I was able to believe in myself.”

Columbia tennis players have made their mark nationally in the 30 years men’s tennis head coach Bid Goswami has been here. The Lions’ Jeff Chang beat Todd Martin in 1987 in the All-American tournament to reach the quarterfinals. Oscar Chow, CC ’03, reached the quarters of the Indoor Nationals in 2002 when he beat the seventh seed from Vanderbilt­—Bobby Reynolds—who is now ranked 118th in the world. More recently, Mihai Nichifor, SEAS ’10 and Jon Wong, CC ’10 both had big wins in Virginia in the NCAA tournament in 2010. But according to Goswami, Schneiderman’s achievement ranks among the very finest in school history.

“It was a tremendous achievement,” Goswami said. “The top eight or nine guys in college tennis would go in and play in the pro tour for some time. Chase is one of those guys. To beat him in Indoor Nationals I think is probably one of the highlights of Columbia tennis. I think Haig will leave a mark by having such a big win. I was really glad our freshmen came to watch it, and it bodes well for us that they see it can be done.”

“To put it into perspective, you should have seen the number of phone calls and emails I got from fellow coaches,” Goswami continued. “Our entire conference is very proud of his achievement.”
The quarterfinal draw set up a clash against University of Kentucky’s Eric Quigley, the No. 4 seed in the tournament and No.3 nationally ranked player, and Schneiderman lost 6-1, 6-2.

However, Schneiderman wasn’t the only Lion who performed well at the event. The men’s doubles team of junior Nate Gery and first-year Winston Lin also notched a win in the consolation draw. Goswami understands the effect of the tournament on the spring season.

“What gives us great excitement is that we know we have a good team, good players,” Goswami said. “I think it bodes well for the spring, when we start by playing Virginia Tech, that the others have seen one of their fellow student-athletes have such a big win. Everybody will be up for it. November, December is when we win the Ivies, not March or April—we have to put in the work now.”
On the women’s side, Bartnik, the winner of the ITA 2011 Northeast Regional title, and sophomore Bianca Sanon participated in the main singles draw. Winning Regionals ranks among Bartnik’s top college tennis honors.

“I always try not to think about what tournament I’m playing and what the situation was and the consequences, so during the tournament I wasn’t thinking about the possibility of winning Regionals,” Bartnik said. “But after the fact, I was happy to say that I was able to qualify for Indoor Nationals on my own—and allow Bianca to get the wild card.”

However, neither Bartnik nor Sanon progressed beyond the first round of the main draw, and thereby both competed in the consolation event. In the doubles competition, Bartnik joined rookie Crystal Leung and they fell 8-2 to the No. 2 seed pairing of Josipa Bek and Keri Wong from Clemson. Bartnik’s tournament was cut short due to injury as she was forced to retire against Ana Veselinovic of Auburn Montgomery in the singles consolation play.

“When I played last year I was still dealing with injuries, and because of that I was still thinking about the situation and I came into this one trying to ignore the things around me,” Bartnik said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t play as well as I’d have hoped in the first round. I was trying to take it a match at a time and not thinking about the occasion.”

Now that the fall season is done, all eyes move forward to the spring season and Ivy competition.

“I sprained my ankle in my second match at Indoor Nationals, and once that recovers it will be back to training,” Bartnik said.

But the impact of Indoor Nationals will still be felt come January.

“I think the best part of the tournament was that it got everyone excited,” Schneiderman said. “It showed that even though we’re an Ivy we can play with anyone. It’s one thing to say that, but another to do it. It gives guys a lot of motivation to practice hard and believe in what we’re doing, and hopefully it’ll work out in the spring. But that’s really the key, us buying into the system that we have in place here.”

The men begin next semester with a trip to Virginia Tech on the weekend of Jan. 20-22, while the women start 2012 with the Cornell Invitational which takes place Jan. 27-29.