Netmen Battle Army Today

Three down, one to go.

After dropping a tightly contested match to Yale two weeks ago, Harvard's men's tennis team found its back to the wall.

The team found that it had to win all three of its last four contests--against Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell and Army--for one of the four spots at the Eastern Regional tournament to be held here in two weeks.

Tuesday the squad took the first step towards that goal, dismantling a tough Dartmouth team, 5-2.

Yesterday, it took the second, destroying a mediocre Cornell team, 7-0.

"Yeah, we're pleased with the effort," freshman Josh Hausman said. "Who wouldn't be pleased with a 7-0 win over anybody in the league."

What made the Crimson win all the more impressive was that it happened without senior captain Marshall Burroughs in the number-one singles spot, and with a number of players on injured reserve.

"We were playing without a number of people," sophomore Dan Chung said. "But everyone came through. I think that shows your what kind of depth we have."

"We've really been forced to develop of lot of depth this year, we've had so many injuries," Hausman said. "Today sort of exemplified that."

Going into the match, Harvard knew very little about the Big Red.

"No one new anything except that their number one singles player was pretty good," Burroughs said. "They are a pretty young team. We just came out hoping to do our best."

The Crimson's "best" was complete domination of the Big Red. Harvard swept both the six singles matches and the three doubles matches (only two of three are required to get tow one doubles point) en route to the shut-out.

In number-one singles, Chung took on what he described as a "tough opponent" and passed almost without a hitch, winning 6-3, 7-5.

"He was a good player, and he played hard throughout the match," he said.

After Chung's victory, the floodgates were opened. Freshman number-two single player Mitty Arnold beat his opponent, 6-4, 6-4; sophomore number-three singles player Howard Kim won, 7-6, 2-1 when his opponent retired early due to a groin injury; freshman number-four singles player Martin Olsson won, 7-6, 6-1 number five singles player Hausman won 7-6, 6-2; and sophomore number-six singles player Adam Valkin won, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.

The Crimson's domination continued into doubles play.

The number-one doubles team of Marshall and Arnold triumphed, 8-5; the number-two team of Kim and Chung won, 8-6; and the number-three team of Hausman and Valkin won, 8-5.

"This was a really encouraging meet in that everyone was playing in different positions, and everyone dominated," Burroughs said. "It was great."

The team will next be in action this afternoon at the Beren Tennis Center when it takes on Army in the last regular season meet of the season. If the team wins, it will be one of four teams at regionals in two weeks, most likley along whit West Virginia, Princeton and Yale.

"This is sort of the last stage," Hausman said. "It's a big match."

Hausman and Company admitted to little knowledge of the Cadets, except one little fact.

"they were beaten by Cornell earlier this year," he said.