Men's tennis cruised to a 9-0 victory over visiting St. John Fisher College on Thursday.[read more]

Matt Volkov reached the championship match of the C Singles at the St. Lawrence University Fall Classic over the weekend in the North Country.[read more]

The University of Rochester men's tennis team defated Nazareth, 9-0, and RIT, 8-1, to claim fith place at the Flower City Tournament.[read more]

Top-ranked Emory University opened the University Athletic Association men's championships with a 9-0 victory over the University of Rochester.[read more]

Sheehan: "Overall, [UR] was just a really good fit I think"

Sophomore Patrick Sheehan probably would never have mentioned the recent honor he received unless confronted with no other choice. When I prompted him by mentioning that the Goldwater Scholarship, which he received in late March, was a pretty big honor, Sheehan replied as if embarrassed that I had drawn attention to the recognition.

“I guess,” he said. “But there are a lot of smart people at this school.”

Make no mistake, though, Patrick Sheehan is among them. And that means both in the classroom and on the tennis courts. A national, premier science scholarship, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate in math, sciences or engineering. Sheehan was one of 278 candidates chosen from a pool 1,100.

In terms of athletics, as a freshman on the UR men’s tennis team last year, Sheehan spent most of his time at the No. 4 singles position. He finished the 2008 season with a 15-10 overall record, including going 12-8 in dual matches. This season, he takes a crack at the No. 3 spot in addition to playing No. 2 doubles. On Friday, he and his Yellowjacket teammates step on the court against the nation’s top-ranked team. Rochester will face Emory University at 10 am in the quarterfinals of the University Athletic Association championships.

But for the Troy, Mich. native, his passion for the sport began long before he ever stepped foot in Goergen Athletic Center. Sheehan has been playing tennis since he was in eighth grade, when his family moved from Chicago to Troy and picking up a tennis racket gave him “something to do.” Since then, he went on to play in both high school and during the off-season in tournaments.

So, when it came time to pick a college, Sheehan opted for UR because it not only offered strong academics, but also a tennis program.

“I wanted to play for a tennis program that I thought I would do well on,” he said. “And that was the good thing about UR... Overall, it was just a really good fit I think.”

Not just in tennis either. Sheehan entered the University interested in Computer Science, but also with an eye for physics. But he discovered a new passion in his first semester, when he took an Astronomy class, found the material interesting and decided to go on as a Physics and Astronomy major.

“Astronomy is just a cool area to learn about because there is just so much we don’t know,” he explained.

At the beginning of last summer, Sheehan took the interdepartmental approach a step further, starting work at a lab with Professor Dan Watson, where he combined comp sci with astronomy, working on data reduction from information from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

And while Sheehan has shown his aptitude in the classroom, that cleverness has also translated onto the tennis courts, where the game pushes him both physically and mentally.

“They say some sports are 90 percent mental,” Sheehan explained. “Well, that’s definitely true for tennis.”

Just as tennis is a combination of mental and physical, it is also a balance between playing as an individual and being on a team — an aspect that Sheehan appreciates.

“On the one hand, you’re out there on the court and you have to figure stuff out on your own,” he said. “But on the other hand, you’re a part of a team and you get to cheer on your teammates.”

When it came down to it, however, it was clear that what the Michigan native really appreciated was his opportunity to play at that high level of competition. Why?

“If I didn’t play tennis in college, there would just be this big void, because I love tennis a lot. Before I took astronomy, tennis was basically my obsession.”

The UAA men's tennis championships at the University of Rochester will begin at 10 am Friday rather than 9 am.[read more]

The nation’s top two men’s tennis programs will be on display this weekend when the University of Rochester hosts the 2009 University Athletic Association men’s tennis championships.[read more]

Bennett Peterson and Brian Schmeer were individual winners for Rochetser in a 7-2 men's tennis loss at The College of New Jersey on Saturday.[read more]

Rochester's men came up just short in a pair of decisions on the tennis court over the weekend with both Stevens Tech and St. Lawrence posting 5-4 wins.[read more]

Four members of the University of Rochester men’s tennis team have received 2009 Spring Sport All Academic Recognition from the UAA.[read more]

The men's tennis team boosted its dual meet record to 9-6 with a 9-0 victory over Nazareth College at the Goergen Center indoor courts on Wednesday.[read more]

Rochester won five of six singles matches in straight sets and went on to a 9-0 victory over Hobart College.[read more]

The University of Rochester men’s tennis team was very successful during a Spring Break trip to Orlando, Florida, winning four of the six matches.[read more]

Visiting Colgate University won two of three doubles matches and five of six singles enroute to a 7-2 win over the men's tennis team.[read more]

Rochester bounced back from a 6-3 loss to Ithaca College on Saturday with a solid 8-1 win over LeMoyne College on Sunday.[read more]

The men's tennis team won two of three doubles events, but Ithaca took five of six singles to win, 6-3.[read more]