Racquetmen Punish Penn, 6-3, For Sixth Victory in a Row

The men's tennis team bagged its sixth straight victory Saturday, defeating Penn, 6-3, in Philadelphia, a sure sign that Harvard will be a force to reckon with in Eastern League tennis this spring.

"The guys played really well," coach Dave Fish--still ecstatic after the Crimson's 6-3 win at Columbia on his birthday the previous day--said yesterday.

"Everyone made up his mind not to make stupid shot, and to go out there and play," he said.

Specifically, Fish spoke of the doubles competition, where Harvard swept all three matches from the home team to break a three-all impasse that had resulted from the singles play.

Todd Lundy--serving up nothing but softballs because of a pulled muscle in his side--teamed with Andy Chaikovsky to turn the number one doubles match into a 6-4, 6-2 rout, while Don Pompan and Greg Kirsch matched that feat with a 3-and-1 romp at third doubles.

Scott Walker and Kevin Shaw, Harvard's most consistent doubles pairing to date, encountered some tough opposition from Murray Robinson and Steve Berliner at number two, but they quashed the Quakers in the third set to win, 6-3 5-7, 6-4.

Number-one singles man Lundy fought another hard-luck battle Saturday as the Harvard captain grooved his injury-adjusted serves to highly-touted Quaker Murray Robinson and lost, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Lundy put up a fight, but only to see his late-match comeback fall just short.

Greg Kirsch also dropped a singles match for the Crimson with a straight-sets loss at six, but perhaps the greatest disappointment of the day came at number three, where Scott Walker lost his third consecutive razor-close match.

Leading 5-1 in the third set against Quaker Steve Berliner, Walker's game suddenly turned cold, and before he knew it, the Texan found himself on the wrong end of a 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 score.

Tchaikovsky?

The other singles matches led to somewhat more pleasant results. Suddenly superb Andy Chaikovsky picked up his seventh straight singles victory in a long, tough three-setter with Penn's Dan Moses. "Chaik" lost his edge in the second set before charging back in the third to win, 7-5, 2-6, 6-4. Five-man Kevin Shaw kept close on Chaikovsky's heels, winning his fifth straight match when he handled Paul Moss in a relatively easy three-setter, 6-1, 6-7, 6-1.

The Penn victory left the Crimson with a 3-0 league mar (7-3 overall) heading into Tuesday's showdown at home with a surprisingly tough Dartmouth squad at home. The Big Green is 5-1, 2-1 league, after beating Penn and losing to Columbia this weekend.

The 2-0 road swing has buoyed Fish's hopes for a Harvard title challenge, especially now that doubles play has improved. Some questions remain, though, most notably Lundy's side

If Todd can't play," Fish said, "the Dartmouth match is a real big tossup." But for now, things are on the up and up