Netmen See Tournament As Tune-Up

Notre Dame comes to Cambridge today. Not Lou Holtz and his gang of semi-professional athletes, but Fighting Irish Coach Bobby Baylas and his squad of racquet wizards.

The Notre Dame men's tennis team is one of four Midwestern powers competing in this weekend's Harvard Invitational Tennis Tournament at the Palmer-Dixon courts.

The Harvard men's tennis team hosts the annual tournament that runs all day today, with finals on Sunday.

Along with Notre Dame, Harvard faces tough competition from Big Ten teams Michigan and North-western. The Crimson goes into the tournament as the sole defender of Northeastern pride, but the invitational's immediate purpose is to help prepare Harvard for the upcoming ECAC Invitational at Yale.

According to NCAA rules, Harvard can only take eight players to New Haven, and Harvard Coach David Fish said that this weekend's tournament will help determine the three best doubles partners and the tops singles players.

"We have many good players. This tournament will help decide who is playing the best now. It will help show us how they do under pressure," Fish said.

Harvard's top players will perform in flight A this weekend: juniors Marshall Burroughs and Richie Lee, sophomores Andrew Rueb and Umesha Wallooppillai, and freshmen Todd Meringoff and Daniel Chung.

Although the season is still young, the Crimson has turned some heads with its play recently-especially with its dazzling performance at last weekend's Yale Invitational, where the Crimson claimed five singles and doubles titles.

"Last week gave us a good idea about what we can do as a team," Fish said. "However, we weren't playing to the top teams. This tournament will be a much better test."

Harvard's ability to play at the highest level (read: among the top 20 in the nation), however, remains to be seen.

"I don't really know how the tournament will turn out. We don't know much about Notre Dame and Michigan, but they should be quite strong," Fish said. "Still I'm pleased with our team, and it should be a very even tournament."

While Fish was reserved in his prediction of the team's changes, some players said the Crimson's depth and strong work ethic should be the deciding factors in Harvard's favor.

"All the teams are really good," Burroughs said. "However, I think we are really deep. We might not have the flashy players from last year's team, but our hard work has made us solid."