The Emory University men’s and women’s tennis teams competed at the 2023 ITA Division III South Regional Championship. Sophomore Emily Kantrovitz defeated senior Ana Cristina Perez for the singles title on Oct. 1, and the pair finished as runners-up for the doubles title. Senior Nolan Shah and sophomore Dean Kamenev won the doubles title, and Kamenev finished as a runner-up for the singles title on Sept. 24.
Kantrovitz takes singles crown at ITA South Regionals
The Emory women’s tennis team built on their strong finish last season, which included a 14-7 overall record and a 2023 NCAA Division III Women’s Tennis Championship semifinals run. Perez attributed the team’s success to their cohesiveness and “care” for each other.
“The main thing for my team’s success [is] the selflessness that we show each other, both on and off the court,” Perez said. “It was really awesome going into this tournament and seeing so many of my teammates train each other, everyone high fiving each other during changeovers … That respect we show for each other and that support that we give each other, I think that’s our main source of success.”
Although Kantrovitz entered the tournament in the No. 1 seed, her mindset was that anyone on the team was “capable” of winning. She had an impressive start, beating Berry College (Ga.) junior Lacey Craig (6-0, 6-0) in the first round and North Carolina Wesleyan University (NCW) sophomore Cristina Mendoza Romero (6-0, 6-1) in the second round.
Kantrovitz continued her winning momentum with a 6-0, 6-4 victory against Sewanee: The University of the South (Tenn.) freshman Mariella Congeni and senior Nicole Nowak (6-4, 6-2) to reach the semifinals. Sophomore Alyssa Margolin and senior Ilayda Baykan also reached the semifinals. Kantrovitz noted that it is “difficult” to face teammates, but playing them in later rounds is representative of the team’s success.
“I didn’t run into [my teammates] until later in the tournament and lots of my other teammates played each other pretty early on,” Kantrovitz said. “[The ITA] tournament’s very unique for us because we’re lucky enough to have such a great team who normally will produce pretty good results and run into each other in the tournament. We all talked about it beforehand, saying we acknowledge that it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be a challenge, but that’s what we want.”
In the semifinal round, Kantrowitz defeated Margolin (6-3, 6-2) and Perez defeated Baykan (6-4, 6-3) to advance to the finals. As doubles partners, Perez said they both understood how to compete as friends.
“We had a general understanding going in,” Kantrovitz said. “We’re gonna give each other our absolute best effort and push each other out of respect. I really just pinpointed a few things I want to focus on. I just focused on staying calm and focusing on me, not like I was playing my doubles partner.”
Kantrovitz beat Perez (6-1, 6-4), qualifying for the ITA Cup, which will be held in Rome, Ga., from Oct. 12-15.
Although Kantrovitz defeated her in the finals, Perez praised Kantrovitz’s efforts to win the title.
“I feel like if it would have been another team, maybe I would have put even more pressure,” Perez said. “I know how good of a player Emily is. I know how hard she’s worked for everything. I feel like at the end, I know she’s worked extremely hard for this, and she is very deserving of the title.”
Kamenev, Shah win doubles title, defeat No. 1 Sewanee
Shah and Kamenev held the No. 2 seed in men’s doubles heading into the tournament. They each had strong seasons last spring. Shah made it to the Round of 16 in the 2023 NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championship and received an All-America honor for his efforts. Kamenev had an accomplished freshman year, garnering an All-University Athletic Association (UAA) Second Team honor and the UAA Rookie of the Year award.
Last season, the men’s team rallied with a strong doubles team consisting of senior Ryan Glanville and Charlie James (23B). The pair made it to the quarterfinals in the national tournament and ended with an overall doubles record of 23-9. As a sophomore, Kamenev said that the team misses the outgoing seniors and that he feels “slightly more pressure” to fill their shoes.
“Last year was completely different,” Kamenev said. “I was a freshman and coming in having a lot of great other players and then role models and supporters, it was really nice to have. It felt like a really close family, and now that they’re gone, it feels really different. [It] feels like I have to step up in certain ways.”
To prepare for the fall tournaments, Shah said he and two other seniors held practices without coaches during the summer. Although a team-wide illness affected how much they were able to practice before the ITA South Regional Championship, Shah said that having an “experienced team” helped get everyone on track.
“[The sophomores have] been through this once before, so they kind of knew what to expect and were on top of things,” Shah said. “We had a great showing at the full regional tournament, all things considered.”
In addition to getting acclimated to competing again, Emory Men’s Tennis Head Coach John Browning said that the fall season is a “developmental period” before the spring season.
“It’s really important that you get everybody on the same page,” Browning said. “We’re all tactically working on elements. Take doubles, for instance. The more we can give them in terms of stats, in terms of percentages, and also the video analysis of where they’re supposed to be in understanding all the four positions in doubles.”
In the doubles tournament, Shah and Kamenev won 8-0 in the first round against Covenant College (Ga.) seniors Solomon Crouch and Gill Dun, 8-2 in the second round against Oglethorpe University (Ga.) sophomores Zack Raymond and Jefferson Page and 8-4 in the quarterfinals against Sewanee junior Talman Ramsey and sophomore Andre-Remi Jakobi. Shah said that a big factor in his and Kamenev’s success as a doubles pair is their ability to read each other well.
“I would have been happy playing with any of the guys,” Shah said. “But I knew that playing with Dean and him being such a good competitor, doing so well last year … I was confident that when it came to the big moments … when you have confidence that they’re gonna do what’s needed, then, as a partner, your mind is at ease because there’s nothing that’s going to surprise you.”
Shah and Kamenev faced NCW in the semifinals. NCW sophomore Sean Keane and graduate student Andrea Fanzaga pushed the Emory duo to three sets (7-5, 6-7, 6-3). Shah and Kamenev, who played NCW as a team at the NCAA tournament in the spring, overcame the challenge against the familiar foe. This set the pair up to set up a match against Sewanee in the finals.
“We knew what to expect, and we knew that they were gonna really come for us and that they believed they were going to win,” Shah said. “In terms of overcoming it, I think we had our whole team on the sidelines cheering. It felt more like [a] spring atmosphere where it’s team versus team, so Dean and I didn’t really feel like we were alone out there. We had our team backing us.”
Although they were ranked behind No. 1 seeded Sewanee doubles pair senior Jordan Theron and junior Quinn Wicklund, Shah believed that he and Kamenev would be able to beat them, which they did in three sets (6-4, 1-6, 6-2).
“We’re pretty confident tennis players overall,” Shah said. “We played a little bit last semester together, but the first time playing in a while in a tournament we played the number one seed, but I think honestly, in the back of our heads, we believed we were the best team in the draw at the beginning of the tournament. We hoped that we’d be the last one standing, and we’ve managed to do that.”
Their win qualified them for the ITA Cup. Kamenev said that moving forward, the team’s goal is to “win everything.”
“[The win is] a small step in what we can accomplish this year,” Kamenev said. “There’s a lot more to do. This is just the region, and I think our ambitions are a lot higher.”
