On Saturday, March 27th, the HBS Tennis Team traveled to Philadelphia to play in Wharton’s Inter-MBA Tennis Tournament. The eight team competition featured three teams from Wharton, and teams from Columbia, Darden, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and our own HBS team. Each team had to have six players, including one female.
The HBS team featured six EC’s as RC’s were still enjoying their spring breaks. Playing singles for HBS were Gog Boonswang (OA), the ultimate competitor, and Spaniard Jose Alonso (OC). At #1 doubles, Aleem Choudhry (OC) and Ryan Clark (OE), HBS Tennis Club officers teamed up, and former collegiate standout Ivy Wang (OI) and blurry-eyed Young Chung (OG) teamed up at #2 doubles.
HBS rolled through its first 3 head-to-head competitions, not losing a single set to two Wharton teams and Cornell, going 12-0 in the process. In the semi-finals, HBS easily defeated Darden, winning 4-0.
The finals pitted Wharton’s best team against HBS. At #2 singles, Jose was quickly defeated by Wharton’s V. Webb – who had played #1 at Duke and played for four years on the tour. HBS tied the score as Ivy and Young won their doubles match 6-3, due in large part to Young being able to nap behind the tournament desk before the finals. Meanwhile, Gog was battling his singles match out with Wharton’s best singles player, Justin Berman, eventually winning 6-2. Gog related after his match: “I played a guy in the final round who played tennis for Georgetown (I played at Princeton), was getting his MBA from Wharton (I am HBS), and who was going to do private wealth management at Goldman Sachs (I am going to Morgan Stanley) – it was obvious I had to win.” HBS won the tournament when Aleem and Ryan held serve to win 6-2 and clinch the victory.
Aleem Choudhry summarized the event: “It was a great feeling to scrap a team together last minute, go down to Wharton’s turf, and take them down with 50 people cheering against you.”
“While the competition was really intense, especially against Wharton, I was pretty amazed at how much effort Wharton went towards showing the teams a good time that night and the rest of the weekend. They were outstanding hosts.” Wharton is hoping to make the inter-MBA tournament an annual event and has vowed revenge for next year.
