Tennis Team Completes 4th Consecutive Undefeated Season

The YU tennis team concluded its fourth consecutive undefeated season last week, with easy wins over York College and Bard College. The wins gave the Macs a perfect 8-0 record this year and 37 consecutive victories since 1994. Unfortunately, the final match against Bard brought to an end the college careers of three of YU’s most successful tennis players; senior tri-captains Josh Hasten, Tsvi Zilbershteyn, and Shai Samet.

Hasten, the number one seed, finished with a amazing 25-3 singles record over three seasons. Similarly, Zilbershteyn, the Independent Athletic Conference rookie-of-the-year as a freshman and one of the rare four-year tennis stars, posted an impressive 18-6 record in singles. Finally, Samet, who also paired up with Hasten in doubles for the past three years, went 18-2 in singles alone.

The team’s success was reflected at YU’s annual athletic awards dinner, where Hasten received the Emile Offenbacher Award for best graduating athlete while Samet took home the Norman Palefski Award for most outstanding scholar-athlete. In addition, a banner will be hung up in the MSAC to honor the tennis team’s four straight undefeated seasons, 1994-1998.

In the 9-0 shutout of Bard early in May, Hasten and Samet won in singles and doubles as did Jeff Taub, Joseph Weilgus, Micha Porat, and Steven Pollack. Last month, the Macs easily defeated York by the score of 7-1.

Next year’s top returning player is 1998 Rookie-of-the-Year Jeff Taub who put up a remarkable 6-0 record in his first year at YU. Other top returning players are Micha Porat, Joseph Weilgus, Ari Raskas, and David Jesselson. Good Luck.