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Rice Tennis: Sumit Sarkar resilient through adversity

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Rice Tennis junior Sumit Sarkar fought through injuries and still managed a productive season. The future remains bright for the Owls’ ace.

Sumit Sarkar had been a rock for the program since he arrived in the spring of 2018. During his freshman season, he recorded the only singles win by a Rice tennis player over a ranked opponent. As a sophomore, he was named C-USA Men’s Player of the Year, the first Rice player to receive that distinction since Bruno Rosa in 2010. The 2019-2020 season was supposed to be a springboard for future success, but things never quite materialized.

The summer started off well for Sarkar. Following the NCAA Tournament, he played a number of international events that ran into July. Then a late-summer injury altered the course of his Rice season. He rehabbed in August and played in a few national tournaments, but he wasn’t back to playing at his best. Winning matches is hard enough when healthy.

Sarkar fought through it and found some success, going 6-3 from the top spot in the lineup during the season. But according to coach Efe Ustendag, Sarkar was never quite back to 100 percent.

Adjustments and improvements to his game which the two had hoped to work on this year were tabled. The 2019-2020 season became solely about getting him back onto the court and healthy, somewhat stunting any developmental goals he might have had for himself.

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Ironically, his healthiest stretch of the season came as the campaign itself was halted. “He’s healthy right now,” Ustendag said with a laugh. “But we’re just sitting.”

When the season ended he stayed in Houston to finish the semester, looking forward to an opportunity to get back to tennis. Sarkar will be back on the court soon enough. When that will be remains to be seen, but his impact on the team will be the same, greater even, with more than enough time to recover.

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Rice Tennis: Trial by fire sets stage for Owls in 2020

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The trial-by-fire approach was painful for two Rice tennis sophomores, but the light at the end of the tunnel paints a reason to retain optimism.

Rice tennis found themselves in uncharted water when they trotted out Campbell Salmon and Karol Paluch as their top two players last fall. Head coach Efe Ustendag was excited about the potential each of those sophomores possessed, but seeing it tested so early as the frontrunners of an injury-plagued roster was decidedly not according to plan.

“We were out of bodies,” Ustendag admitted when asked about his decision to turn to the emerging duo. Reigning C-USA Player of the Year Sumit Sarkar was far from being 100 percent. Several other players were knocked up here and there. The sum total of the various injuries was a roster stretch thin early in the year.

Salmon and Paluch were asked to lead the way. They struggled early. They were noticeably affected by the jump in the level of competition they faced on a weekly basis. The Owls had planned to hit the duo sixth and seventh in the order, not first and second. Bruised but not beaten, the sophomores learned from the experience.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

Ustendag knew he was playing the long game. “I think this is really going to set them up well for the rest of their careers,” he said, seeing the good in a challenging situation.

Those two won’t be left alone to lead the way. Rice loses just one player, senior Eric Rutledge, from their starting rotation next season. They also add incoming freshman Trinity Grear and should have a more experienced version of returning sophomore Wes Barnett.

Next year’s upperclassmen-laden roster will have seen a thing or two in their college playing days. The adversity wasn’t comfortable in the moment, but the far-reaching impact could be very positive.

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Rice Tennis: Tough injury luck leaves Owls wishing for 2019 mulligan

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Injuries derailed the 2019-2020 Rice tennis season before it ever picked up much momentum. The Owls must pick up the pieces and look toward the future.

The 2019-2020 Rice tennis season needed a reboot by the time mid-March arrived. That reset that hit the Owls’ tennis program left no room for course corrections, instead causing the premature end of what had been a frustrating campaign

Reigning C-USA Men’s Player of the Year Sumit Sarkar had battled injuries throughout the fall. So too had fellow junior Jacob Eskeland. Outmanned, Rice battled against an unforgiving schedule that included a spring stretch with three Top 15 teams in the span of a month.

“I felt it would actually be a pretty good year for us,” recalled head coach Efe Ustundag. “We graduated nobody from the starting lineup, especially in singles, so everybody was coming back. We added a stellar freshman we thought was just going to make our entire unit stronger and Conference USA player of the year from the year before Sumit Sarkar [was] returning as a Top 25 collegiate player.”

It’s impossible to boil things down to a single “why” but the injury-riddled fall certainly played a significant role in what had become one of the worst starts of Ustendag’s tenure. Which is what made the March halt all the more disappointing.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

Rice had turned the corner on the injury front. For the first time in months, the team was able to match its opponents’ top players against its own.

“The record wasn’t stellar,” said Ustendag. “However, the quality of play was getting there and more importantly, we were getting healthy.”

Rice would never get that chance. There was no conference tournament this year and no NCAA Tournament either. The record books have been inked for this 4-8 season, one which was one win away from flipping the script. Sometimes you just have to chalk it up to a bad year and move on.

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Rice Tennis and the Zoom call heard ’round the world

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Rice tennis is adapting to their new normal. Their biggest challenge: how to get an entire international team together for a meeting at the same time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted college athletics around the world. What should have been the spring season for Rice tennis was tabled just like everything else. Many players returned home, just like members of a slew of other athletic teams.

For many members of Rice tennis, though, home is a bit further than the average Rice athlete. The Owls have two Texans on their 10-man roster, one of which has now graduated and moved on. Of the other eight members (nine counting 2020 signee Trinity Grear), four of them make their homes in the United States. The remainder of the roster consists of international players.

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz is from the United Kingdom. Jacob Eskeland is from Norway. Karol Paluch is from Poland. Salmon Campbell is from Australia. A diverse roster isn’t unusual for the collegiate tennis, but it doesn’t have its challenges when it comes to working remotely.

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Coach Efe Ustundag has been forced to thread the needle when he wants to schedule time to chat with his entire team. 4:00 p.m. central time has become the window of choice. The team meetings then stretch from 2:00 p.m. local time in San Diego, to 11:00 p.m. local time in Norway and Poland to 7:00 a.m. local time in Melbourne, Australia.

It’s unconventional, especially compared to the hundreds of college sports teams who aren’t meeting simultaneously in the middle of the night and at the crack of dawn. But for Rice tennis, it works.

“A couple of the chats were clearly designed to catch up and let the guys be loose,” Ustundag said. “They haven’t seen each other for a while.” Each is led by a team member or a coach. Topics of the calls have varied widely from tennis specifics to mindfulness and time management.

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