Adversity was the name of the game this season for the Phoenix men’s tennis team. With more than half of the team being comprised of freshmen and only one senior who battled hip flexor problems all season, head coach Michael Leonard knew it would be an uphill battle all year long.
“The whole season was about adversity,” Leonard said. “We lost a lot of close matches where we had it on our racquets to win and we didn’t quite get through. We’ve had a lot of injuries and other situations that have occurred over the year, but our guys have grown up a lot.”
Overall, the team finished the season 9-15 with a 5-5 regular season conference mark. Freshman Stefan Fortmann, a native of South Africa, won Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors, joining Damon Gooch (also a native of South Africa) and Cameron Silverman as recent Elon freshmen to take home the honors.
“The award is probably the highlight of the season for me individually,” Fortmann said. “Seeing my name on the same list as Cameron Silverman and Damon Gooch, it’s really nice.”
Joining Fortmann on the all-freshman team was Jordan Kaufman, who posted an impressive 8-2 conference record while winning 12 matches overall. Sophomore Cameron Silverman achieved first team all-conference in both singles and doubles, with the team’s lone senior, Eric Turner, joining Silverman on the doubles side.
With only one senior departing from this year’s squad, and only one off next year’s team, Turner figures Elon is going to be the team to beat in the Southern Conference over the next two to three years.
“Elon is going to have probably the best No. 1 and No. 2 in the conference with Cameron and Stefan for the next two years,” he said. “We have a lot of guys that played this year and will be back next year, so I think Elon is going to have the team to beat for a while.”
Returning almost all of this year’s firepower, both Leonard and Fortmann know they can be the team to beat as well.
“Our freshman really progressed very well,” Leonard said. “We lost so many tight matches and they could have given in, but they didn’t, so I think our future is very bright.”
The players share the same positive outlook on the future.
“We all kind of realize we can do something special with the team we have.” Fortmann said. “All of the losses we’ve gone through have made us better. All of the adversity from this season will definitely help us down the road. You can feel the excitement in this group, and it’s exciting to imagine what we can do, but we’ll have to wait and see next year.”