When I was a freshman, I was exhilarated when I heard that NYU Shanghai would form a tennis team. However, the plan was put off due to budget constraints and the lack of coaches. At the last sports team president forum with Kyle Rothstein, I discussed the possibility to form a tennis team with him. He was eager to form a tennis team as well, so he told his successor to carry on this plan. Fortunately, Elyse Yuzi Hong, who is the new director of athletic department, is experienced in tennis management. She is a big tennis fan and she used to work for Wimbledon. After she discuss this plan with Adam Ebnit, we decided to launch the plan of forming tennis again. In October, we finalized tennis team’s roster: Sam Khoshbin, Evan Zhang, Ella Kuzmenko, Katherine Stein, Sevi Reyes, Wonseok Lee, Mira Malmosi, Haider Ali, Bradford Sunderland, Dillon Fournier and I became the first members of this brand new team. In late October, we competed in the annual Fudan Open. Ella made it into semi-finals in women’s singles. Brad and I all made it into the fourth round in men’s singles. Most impressively, Haider made it into to the quarterfinals and Sam won the champion! On November 14th, the NYU Shanghai tennis team took part in the first team competition with Ningbo-Nottingham university and Xijiao-Liverpool university. We decided to use the Davis Cup rules in this competition, which includes two men’s singles, one women’s single, one men’s doubles and one mixed doubles matches. The team can beat its competitors if it wins three matches out of five. We lost two women’s singles matches but won the remaining matches. Finally, we earned four matches out of five against each of these two schools. This is the first championship we won as a new team and we are NYU Shanghai’s first sports team to win a championship! The team expects to compete against five schools in the Spring edition of the tournament.作为一个网球爱好者，一年前刚入学时听说学校要组建网球队的我特别激动。然而由于种种原因组队的计划一再推迟，在Kyle组织的最后一次球队例会上我又一次提出组建的想法，但由于他的离开又遭搁浅。本以为没办法再建成网球队的我却有幸在这学期认识了新上任的体育部负责人Elyse。Elyse有极为丰富的网球赛事工作经验，我们在聊天中一拍即合，组建网球队的计划正式启动。在短短一个月内，我们完成了从选拔到确定最终名单的全部过程。上海纽约大学网球队的第一批成员最终确定：Sam, Evan, Ella, Katherine, Sevi, Wonseok, Mira, Bradford, Haider, Dillon还有我。这支由四位study away students和七位portal students组成的队伍正式起航。在一年一度的复旦邀请赛上，Ella闯入女单半决赛，男单的四名参赛队员（Sam, Haider, Brad和我）全部晋级十六强。最终Haider闯进八强，球队核心Sam拿下公开赛男单冠军。带着这样的傲人战绩，球队在11月14日参加和宁波诺丁汉大学、西安利物浦大学在苏州展开的第一次三校友谊赛。比赛采取五战三胜制度，三所学校交替比赛，每队需派出两个男单，一个女单，一对男双以及一对混双。打头阵的Sam在加油声中以6:2击败了代表宁诺的来自丹麦的小哥。尽管女单Ella连续两场惜败对手，但是男单二号Haider,男双组合Brad、Sevi,还有混双组合Evan和我全部获胜。上纽网球队以两场大比分4:1的战绩拿下第一座团体赛冠军。这也是上海纽约大学的第一座体育团体赛冠军。下学期，三校赛将荣升为五校邀请赛，上纽大还有可能获得参加全国大网赛的资格。这支冉冉升起的网球队将会努力取得更多突破！This article was written by Junchao Lin. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Sevi Reyes