One of only two Ivy Leaguers presently ranked in the ISDA top 20 (Steve Scharff is the other), this just-turned-30 Dartmouth ’02 alumnus and former all-American prospered first in the vaunted Heights Casino junior program and then at Hanover as the No. 1 player under the coaching guidance of John Power. He and Andrew Merrill had a strong start to the 2008-09 season, successfully wending their way through the qualifying draws in both Baltimore (15-13 in the fifth over Andrew Cordova and Ben Garner) and New York and reaching the semis of the Silver and Gold Racquets Invitationals before a pair of overtime-in-the-fifth losses on consecutive February weekends (18-15 to Rob Whitehouse/Greg Park in Philadelphia, then 17-14 in Brooklyn to Shane Coleman/Whitten Morris, who had trailed 14-11) derailed their momentum. Probably the best moment for this New York City banker last season came in early January in Boston, where he and first-time partner James Hewitt won a five-game round of 16 battle against Andrew Slater and Alex Langerhorst, who would later be Anvari’s partner during the final two events last spring as well as in both full-ranking tournaments this past autumn.
