Road Warriors: Netmen Win Three

When Harvard men's tennis Coach David Fish looked at his team's schedule back in February, one weekend stood out like a Yankee fan in the Fenway bleachers.

Harvard had to play Navy, West Virginia and Princeton in a four-day stretch, all on the road, all league games. In addition, West Virginia and Princeton are ranked among the top programs in the Northeast.

It was a freak of scheduling--and the results were freakish.

Harvard defeated both West Virginia on Sunday and Princeton on Sunday in the kind of 4-3 thrillers that lead coaches to discover religion. Navy, Friday's opponent, went down 7-0.

"[Princeton and West Virginia] were two of the hairiest matches I have ever seen," Captain Pete Stovell said.

Of the two, Princeton was the hairier. The tired Harvard team went out and lost the doubles point to the Tigers, who were boosted by a rabid pro-Princeton crowd.

Harvard rebounded in the singles matches, however. Victories by sophomores Andrew Rueb and Umesha Wallooppillai and freshman Tod Meringoff pushed the score to 3-1, Harvard, but junior Marshall Burroughs lost to bring Princeton within one.

With only sophomore Chris Laitala (playing sixth) and freshman Daniel Chung (playing fifth) out on the court for Harvard, the Crimson only had to win one to cinch the match. But Laitala lost a third-set tiebreaker and the score was tied, putting the pressure squarely on the freshman.

At the time of Laitala's loss, Princeton's Reed Cordish had just broken Chung's serve to go up 4-3 in the third set. Chung broke Cordish in the next game to tie the score, but Cordish broke Chung again to go up 5-4 and serve for the game, set, match, and team match.

"It was unbelievable," Stovell said. "We were all pressed up against the fence along with the crowd shouting at [Chung], and he didn't flinch."

But Chung fought off the pressure and broke Cordish to even the set at 5-5, and then managed to win his service game (at last) to go up 6-5.

In the final game, Chung went up 40-15 on Cordish's serve, then allowed Cordish to close to 40-30. But Chung held on and the game, set, match and team match were his.

"It's just one of things," Fish said. "It's either in the cards or it ain't. Danny went out and played."

"It was a tough situation for a freshman to be in," Walloopillai said.

The West Virginia match did not come down to the last match, but it did come down to the last two.

Again, the Crimson lost the doubles point, but not without a fight. With the doubles' score even at one, Stovell and Burroughs fell behind in the third set but broke their Mountaineer opponents' serve twice to force a tiebreaker.

West Virginia pulled out the match and won the doubles point as well as "a huge swing in momentum," according to Fish.

"We had to win four of the six singles matches," Fish said. "We kept going under the gun."

Harvard's collective blood pressure went up when Burroughs lost his singles match and Harvard went down, 2-0.

But Wallooppillai rebounded from a 5-2 first set deficit to win 7-6, 6-0 and Rueb and Chung won in straight sets to put Harvard in front, 3-2.

That left Meringoff and Laitala as the only ones playing. Both of them won their first sets and lost their second ones, but Meringoff polished off his opponent 6-2 in the third to win the team match.

With the match already decided, Laitala lost 6-3 in the third set for West Virginia's final point.

"The way the match went was just very amazing," Fish said.

Undefeated Harvard will play undefeated Yale here on Saturday.