Juniors Othman Bezzaz and Ernesto Ruy made St. Joe’s men’s tennis history by being the first doubles team to reach the semifinals of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association regionals and quarterfinals of ITA East Sectionals Championships Oct. 19 and Nov. 6, respectively.
The duo defeated 15th-seeded Columbia University 8-7 in a tiebreaker to reach the semifinals and won against fourth-seeded Clemson University 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 in a super tie-breaker to make the quarterfinals.
By beating University of Pennsylvania 8-7 in regionals to advance to the quarterfinals against Columbia, the duo automatically qualified for sectionals. Bezzaz said he was initially unaware they were the first Hawks to make that round and described the feeling as “surprised but happy at the same time.”
“After that win against UPenn, [head coach Jeff Puhan] told us, ‘You guys made history, and you qualified for sectionals,’” Bezzaz said. “We were, like, ‘Oh.’ I didn’t even know about it.”
Ruy described the experience as “different” after becoming accustomed to the team’s season ending after regionals.
“I was very happy to do good, and also very happy because after that, we realized what we can do and what we can achieve,” Ruy said.
Bezzaz and Ruy broke the previous record set in 2021 when Nickolas Frisk ’21, M.S. ’22, and Alp Sentay, M.S. ’22, made the round of 16. Bezzaz said winning match after match built up their confidence.
“We were like, ‘Oh, we did something great,’ and then we just build up and think about how we can improve it for the next match,” Bezzaz said. “We still were able to beat some great teams, some top-ranked teams.”
Ruy credits their run to the support of his teammates, who hold themselves to high standards to win and work hard. He said the team is happy to watch each other win, and that being surrounded by positivity bolsters their success.
“If someone does good, we are very happy,” Ruy said. “If I do good, I’m happy. Othman is happy for me. That’s a very big support, to see that everyone is happy about your success.”
Ruy said the hard work was “exhausting,” but it was required of them to succeed.
“Everyone wants to win and to participate and work hard,” Ruy said. “Working hard in practice, if everyone works hard, everyone’s going to improve.”
Puhan said watching the duo was “gratifying” and that he knew they could accomplish more than what was expected of them.
“I’m thrilled to death that these guys are seeing success because it only fuels them to want to work harder and achieve even more,” Puhan said.
The pair ultimately lost to Penn 6-4, 7-6 in regionals and North Carolina 6-4, 6-2 in sectionals. Bezzaz said while they’re not happy with the outcome, they learned a lot from the matches and will use the experience to prepare themselves for the spring season.
“[We were] disappointed, obviously, after the loss with UNC,” Bezzaz said. “But we also had a discussion at the end of the match and tried to figure out some details that we should work on.”
Ruy echoed Bezzaz’s sentiment.
“Those small details that are going to make us win those matches in the future, just work on those things and practice those things,” Ruy said.
