The men’s tennis team won 7-0 in the first two matches of the G-MAC season March 23-24.

The Chargers opened  their season with a victory  over Kentucky Wesleyan on Saturday. 

Hillsdale won the doubles point by winning all three doubles matches. Senior Daniel Gilbert and freshman Henry Hammond played a tiebreak to secure the No. 3 doubles match 7-6. 

“Winning a close match always feels good, especially since we did not play well,” Gilbert said. “We were able to use our experience and play differently to still win the match.”

The Chargers also stood undefeated in the singles play, winning all six matches, wrapping up their match against Kentucky Wesleyan with a 7-0 win.

The Chargers had a second match against Thomas More on Sunday, securing a second-straight 7-0 G-MAC victory. Dominating both the doubles and singles, the Chargers won all three doubles, winning the doubles point, and won all six singles matches. 

New to the Conference in 2024, Thomas More left Hillsdale unsure of what to expect from them leading up to the match.

“Sometimes it can be a blessing and a curse to play a team you know nothing about because you don’t know how they play, but also, they don’t know how you play,” Gilbert said. “But the team handled it with no problem, which is great to see that we took a potentially tough situation and turned it into a routine victory.”

Each Charger had a successful weekend, winning all their singles and doubles matches. For head coach Keith Turner,  sophomore Aidan Pack stood out because of his success playing as the No.1 position.

“It was great for Aidan Pack to go 4-0 on the weekend playing No.1 singles and No.1 doubles,” Turner said.

The men’s tennis team currently stands 7-6 overall and 2-0 in the G-MAC.

“We accomplished our goal of winning all the matches over the weekend.  We can expect tougher matches over the last 4 weeks of the regular season,” Turner said.

The Chargers head off for matches at Cedarville on Friday and Ashland on Saturday over Easter break.

“It will be a challenge this weekend as we will probably be playing outside,” Turner said. “We haven’t had a chance to practice outside in a number of weeks. Hopefully we can pull out both matches.”

Hillsdale will host Findlay on April 12 and Tiffin on April 13. Hammond has encouraged students to watch home tennis matches.

“Not a lot of people understand tennis so it’s hard for them to get into it,” Hammond said. “But if you were to go to a tennis match and stay for a while and see what the atmosphere is like and how loud it is, and if you hear everyone cheer and you just join in and cheer with them, then it’s loads of fun.”