Eli Match to Decide Tennis Standings

For the first time in four years, only second place in the Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis League will be at stake when Harvard and Yale meet this afternoon at 3 p.m. on the Soldiers Field courts. Princeton, the only team to defeat the Crimson this year, has clinched both the Eastern and the Big Three titles, as the Harvard-Yale domination of Eastern tennis has been brought to at least a temporary end.

No one remains from the top eight of Yale's great 1960 team, which swept through the entire season undefeated. Don Dell and Gene Scott, the finalists in last year's New England tournament, have graduated, as have Giff Hopkins, Rick Wallace and Sunny Howe. Mike Neely has dropped out of school, and--to top coach John Skillman's woes--Sid Wood and captain-elect Craig Joyner were killed in a tragic automobile accident just before the current season started.

Yet Yale's tennis depth is such that the Elis have bounced back from all this to have a remarkably good season--one that could be made perfect by a victory over the favored Crimson today. In the Eastern League, Yale has lost only to Princeton, 8 to 1 (no disgrace, as the Crimson will attest), and Dartmouth, 5 to 4, the day after Harvard had taken the Big Green in another 5-4 squeaker. The Crimson is probably a better team than the Elis, but if there can be such a thing as a psychological edge in a Harvard-Yale contest, today it will be on Yale's side.

Bob Hetherington and Ralph Howe play in the first two singles for the Elis. Both are sophomores. In last year's freshman match, the Crimson's Paul Sullivan defeated Hetherington while Doug Walter beat Howe. Today Hetherington will have to face Harvard senior Bob Bowditch, beaten only by Princeton's Drayton Nabers in regular season play. Howe and Sullivan clash at number two, and Walter, playing number three for the Crimson, meets Dinny Phipps.

Keith Martin, Gary Adelman and Captain Pete Smith round out the varsity's top six, and will face Yale Captain Steve Anderson, Carry Parry and Tony Brooks, respectively. In the seventh through tenth singles, played only for Big Three scoring, Mark Woodbury, Dave Moore, Kal Pollen and Chris Clark will go for the Crimson.

In the doubles, only the first pair of Bowditch and Sullivan has been set all year for the Crimson; they will play Howe and Phipps. Hetherington-Parry and Anderson-Brooks are the Elis' second and third teams. The Crimson could use any two of several possible combinations.

The Crimson looks like the better team all along the line, but anything can happen in a Harvard-Yale match. It could be a close one.