ERIC HALPERN REPRESENTS EMORY AT THE FALL ITA NATIONAL SINGLES EVENT

The fall National ITA singles and doubles event is one of our most prestigious events during school year. This event takes the winners of each ITA regional event across the country to battle it out for ITA singles and doubles crown. This year the tournament was in Fort Meyers, Florida, fielding the best 8 players in the country.

Eric Halpern's win at the ITA regional event put him in a very elite class of players who have competed over the years at this event under the Emory banner.  During my tenure at Emory, I have taken this amazing group of players: Brett Kaplan, Michael Miller, Mark Odgers, Alex Jacobs, Jesse Ferlianto, Patrick Redmond, Yoji Masuoka, Michael Goodwin, Mark Boren, Dillon Pottish, Chris Goodwin, Nicolas Szczurek, and Jackson Isaacs. It's an honor to play at this tournament and speaks to the commitment and focus Eric has displayed to get to this point in his career.

Eric had the privilege and burden of being the number 1 seed at the tournament. Eric's first round match was against a talented player from Kenyon, Sam Geier, who won the mid-west regional event. Seeds really do not matter at this tournament because there are no easy matches. Eric started the match playing solid tennis and fortunately, his opponent was making a few unforced errors to aid in a first set win. I could tell that Eric was definitely not comfortable and playing at the level he has come to rely on. So, I knew that the 2nd set was not going to be easy considering that this young man had the potential to raise his game. Geier, has one of the bigger serves in Division III, and unfortunately, he found his rhythm, and eliminated the unforced errors. Geir ended up winning the 2nd set.

I could see that the kid was talented and had a big serve. My hope was that he would not get in a rhythm, but he picked his game up in the second set and with an early break, won it 6-4.  Eric, started out slowly in the 3rd and found himself down 4-1.  As I have stated many times before, he is one of our best competitors, so I was not the least bit surprised that he got himself back in the match. Once again, Eric fought off match points, but on this rare occasion,  he was unable to finish it off.

I am so proud of Eric's effort at this tournament and the amount of work he put into his game over the summer. Eric is a competitor and I know that the results was far from his ultimate goal, but knowing him, the ITA national results will only motivate him more, which will in turn take his game to another level in the spring.