Netmen Exit Tourney Early

The Harvard men's tennis team has been full of surprises this year. Without the services of many of last year's most talented players, the team managed to finish with an impressive 14-8 record. That was a surprise.

With one senior on the squad, a group of young competitors stepped up for the Crimson throughout the season in the nail-bitting, three-set matches that are the difference between victory and defeat in college tennis. That was a surprise.

And Harvard received an invitation to the NCAA Division I Championships this year. That was a surprise.

But last Friday, in the first round of the Big Dance, Harvard dug deep into its bag of surprises and found that it had just ran out. And the Crimson lost to the Tar Heels of North Carolina, 5-3, at Henry Field Stadium in Athens, Ga.

Harvard started the contest with the clear intention of upsetting UNC, and the two teams finished the singles matches tied at three. Junior Marshall Burroughs, sophomore Umesha Wallooppillai, and rookie Dan Chung each won their battles in straight sets.

But then came the doubles.

UNC swept the matches at the number one and number two positions in straight sets to end the contest. Sophomores Andrew Rueb and Wallooppillai lost 6-4, 6-3 to UNC's Roland Thornqvist, the nations sixth-seeded doubles player and his partner Daryl Wyatt.

Junior Adam Meister and freshman Todd Meringoff dropped their match 7-6, 6-2 to Brett Hutton and Sean Sienour.

"If we had won that first set, we would have won our match" Meringoff said.

Meringoff also said that although the Crimson players were happy that they had split the singles matches with the Tar Heels, they also realized that they could have been ahead going into the doubles.

"All the matches we lost were in three sets," Meringoff said. "Winning won of those would have really helped us in the doubles."

In the singles competition, Rueb lost to Thornqvist, the fourth-seeded singles player in the nation, in three sets by a score of 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.

Players said that Rueb felt ill going into his match and that sickness affected his play against Thronqvist.

"Rueb was feeling really sick" Burroughs said. "It may have been something that he ate, and he just didn't have enough energy."

Meringoff dropped his singles match 6-2, 1-6, 6-1 to Wyatt. "I was really rolling after the second set, but he came out strong in the third," Meringoff said.

And the Tar Heels' Cooper Pulliam beat Crimson freshman Howard Kim 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.

Harvard wanted to make this the second consecutive year that it made it past the first round of the tournament. Last year, the Crimson beat Drake before falling to Georgia in the second round.

Players said, however, that they as well as Harvard Coach Dave Fish were very pleased with the way things went this season.

"If we had played [UNC] in the first moth of the season, we would have lost 7-1 or something," Burroughs said. "We've really improved."

And the team is already looking forward to next year's competition.

"This was supposed to be a rebuilding year," Meringoff said. "I think next year we'll be really strong."

****

Stovell's Final Match: Senior Captain Pete Stovell played in his last match for the Crimson Friday, and he didn't even get to finish it.

With the victory clinched for the Tar Heels, officials suspended Burroughs and Stovell's doubles contest against David Caldwell and Brint Morrow.

Stovell finished this season with 17 doubles wins, and players said that the team would miss him.

"Losing Pete is going to be tough even though he only play doubles," Chung said. "He does so much for the team, and he'll be hard to replace."