Princeton men's tennis doubles team reaches quarterfinals at ITA Championships

The Princeton men’s tennis team is back on the court, recently coming home from a strong run at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-American Championships, a national tournament featuring the best programs in college tennis. Traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma, three Tigers — senior Payton Holden, junior Ryan Seggerman, and sophomore Karl Poling — spent much of last week battling it out against the top doubles and singles players in the country.

The ITA Championships kicked off the start of more individually-focused tournaments that play out during the fall in preparation for the season, which will feature Ivy League play and the NCAA tournament. Although only a few Princeton players go to these tournaments at a time, fall preseason play has more significance than simply being a way to boost individual rankings.

“The fall is really important — all of this counts towards the NCAA selections and your preseason team ranking, so how you do collectively from an individual perspective has an impact,” head coach Billy Pate said.

All three Princeton representatives competed in the tournament’s singles qualifying round, but none qualified for the main draw because each lost in their first match. In doubles, however, the Tigers found more success.

The Seggerman and Holden duo, ranked No. 15 nationally entering the tournament, had no intentions of going home early. The two were a tiebreaker away from making the NCAA quarterfinals and receiving an All-America bid last year, and a fresh start could be exactly what they needed heading into this new season.

The experienced pair first defeated a No. 10 team from Northwestern in a first-to-ten tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets, with a score of 4–6, 6–3, (10–5). In the round of 16, the duo then defeated a No. 37 South Alabama team in another nail-biter, 6–2, 1–6, (11–9). Getting these two quality wins against tough opponents were exactly what Seggerman and Holden were looking for in preparation for the start of team play.

“Anyone who was playing in this [tournament] had a good preseason ranking, and performing at [the ITA Championships] is a good way to establish yourself early on as one of the teams that you could see later in the year for the NCAA [tournament] or the other big tournaments,” Seggerman said.

The pair were finally defeated in the quarterfinals 6–1, 7–6 (2) by a University of Central Florida team that had defeated three top-20 teams, including the second-ranked team, Texas Tech. The UCF doubles team eventually went on to finish as tournament runners-up.

Despite the premature exit, the program is looking forward to what many think could be their most successful season in the past few years. All of the starters from last year are returning, and the Tigers are welcoming the addition of first-year Thomas Bosancic, who had lots of success in his native Australia before joining the Princeton squad.

“We were able to replace the senior we lost with [Bosancic] who is really good, so we feel pretty confident going into the year from an individual and team perspective,” Pate said. “We’re excited to get after it.”