Crimson Teams Take Off for NCAA Tourneys

Senior captain Todd Lundy and junior Andy Chaikovsky leave this morning for Athens, Ga., where they will slip in a day of practice before competing in the NCAA tennis championships.

Lundy will compete in the 64-man singles competition, and he will team with Chaikovsky to enter the 32-pair doubles draw. Lundy and then-captain Dan Waldman entered the tourney last spring, only to lose in the early rounds.

Lundy, a three-year starter at second singles before moving up to number one this season, started the season slowly against the improved competition he had to face. "The Doctor" grooved his solid, virtually flawless game in the squad's league opener, though, to smash Navy's Buddy Robinson, 6-2, 6-2.

A pulled rib muscle impaired Lundy's game in close losses to league standouts Eric Fromm (Columbia) and Murray Robinson (Penn). But Lundy came back against nationally-ranked Princeton, knocking off their co-captain, Tom Brightfield, with a stunning 5-4 tiebreaker victory in the third set.

Slow Start

The Lundy-Chaikovsky number-one doubles pairing also had a slow start in '78, dropping a string of matches before peaking at Yale, where they defeated the national indoors championship team of Matt Doyle and Cary Leeds in a three-setter.

Buddy and Murray Robinson, Fromm, Doyle and Leeds, along with Princeton frosh sensation Jay Lapidus and a small handful of lesser lights, will join the Crimson netmen in representing the Eastern League at Athens.

Only Lapidus, a ball-smashing south-paw, has any realistic chance of placing high in the tournament. Defending team champion Stanford did not graduate a player, and it added Wimbledon semifinalist John McEnroe. McEnroe, teammate and defending individual champ Matt Mitchell, UCLA's John Austin, Elliot Teltscher and Trinity's Larry Gottfried should fight it out for number-one individual honors.

But reaching the quarterfinals means All-American status, so if Lundy wins his first three matches or the Crimson doubles squad wins its first two, keep your eyes open for some more headlines.