Yale Athletics

This weekend, six players of the Yale men’s tennis team traveled to Atlanta to compete at the Georgia Tech Invitational.

Theo Dean ’24, Aidan Reilly ’25, Luke Neal ’25, Vignesh Gogineni ’26, Renaud Lefevre ’24 and Michael Sun ’23 ventured to Georgia to compete against players from University of Miami, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Mississippi and Vanderbilt University. 

“My highlight of the weekend was seeing the team rebound off of a difficult day Saturday with five three-set matches and then go 8–1 on Sunday with a lot of solid results,” Neal said. 

The doubles teams of Lefevre with Sun and Neal with Gogineni cruised to quick doubles victories Friday morning to kick off the invitational. Lefevre and Sun defeated UGA’s Miguel Perez Peña and Thomas Paulsell in an 8–7 victory. Neal and Gogineni toppled Vanderbilt’s Joubert Klopper and Paul Wang 8–5.

Dean and Reilly fell to the home team’s Andres Martin and Rohan Sachdev in a tight 8–7 loss.

Gogineni earned the Bulldog’s singular Friday singles win, besting Miami’s Casper Christensen 7–6, 7–6.

“My highlight of the weekend was probably just winning my first match since the competition was a lot higher compared to what I played earlier this fall,” Gogineni said. “My favorite match might have been my second one against Vandy.”

On Saturday, Gogineni battled Vanderbilt’s Siim Troost in a tight triple set match. After losing the first set, Troost eked out a slim victory (6–3, 4–6, 4–6).

Lefevre earned the Elis’ singular Saturday point in a 6–2, 6–3 win over Vanderbilt’s Wang.

Despite an unsuccessful Saturday, the Blue and White came back on Sunday in the final day of the invitational. All three doubles teams clinched victories, and all singles players but Sun left with a win under their belt.

Reilly defeated Georgia Tech’s Sachdev 6–1, 6–0, and Neal came back against UGA’s Paulsell to win in a third set victory with a final score of 2–6, 6–4, 6–4.

“My favorite match was on Sunday,” Neal said. “I played a high level player from Georgia and stuck with my intentions during the match and rebounded after losing the first set.”

With Gogineni, Neal crushed Ole Miss’ Walker Stearns and Gordon Whitwell 8–1.

Team captain Dean also defeated a Georgia player on Sunday, besting Perez Peña 6–3, 7–5.

“The best part of the trip was that we improved bit by bit each day on the main three things we have been focusing on: team preparation, team energy and team competitiveness,” Dean wrote to the News. “We did these things well the first day, a little better the second day and we did them best on the final day.”

The Georgia Tech Invitational was the team’s final competition for the fall season.

Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams will resume their seasons in the spring with their regular season and Ivy League conference play.

“Now that we are done with official NCAA competition until the spring season, we are going to place emphasis on physical fitness for the next two months, as well as continuing the work we’ve been doing all semester,” Dean said.

The men’s team finished sixth in the conference last spring.