Women's Tennis Returns Bulk of Ivy-Winning Squad

In collegiate sports, a team that stays the same is usually a team that gets better.

Such is the case for the Harvard women's tennis team. The Crimson only loses one player from the 1994-95 squad, junior Maryla Madura--a number-six singles player who is spending this year researching. There were no seniors on the team.

As a result, Harvard tennis fans will see some familiar faces on the courts this academic year--all of whom have an extra year of experience--and that ought to make all of their games even stronger.

Still, Harvard was pretty darn good last season. Ranked number 40 in the nation at the end of the season, the Crimson (14-9 overall, 7-0 Ivy) won matches against such highly-ranked programs as the University of California at Santa Barbara, Oklahoma State, Virginia Commonwealth and Florida International.

Add that to its perfect Ivy League season, and Harvard's talent is hard to overlook.

So in this upcoming fall season, coach Gordon Graham only has to rekindle the fire. The season begins at the end of September with the Harvard Invitational, which features Wisconsin, Rice, Colorado and Boston College. None of them are patsies--Wisconsin and Rice are both Top 30 teams, while Colorado should be ranked in the 40s.

After that, Harvard goes to the ITA Regional Championships, which is a qualifier for the National Indoor Championships in February. Lastly, the top Crimson players compete in the Rolex Invitational in early November.

Even though none of these games are league games--Harvard won't play any Ancient Eighters until the spring semester--Graham is sure not to underestimate the importance of the fall season.

"The fall schedule is really important--it lays the ground for the upcoming season," Graham said. "The Ivies are a long way away, and there's a lot of work [to be done]."

Part of that is deciding what the seedings will be. Granted, the roster is essentially the same as a year ago, but one never knows who's been hitting balls all summer and who's been eating Big Macs.

So assuming that there are no Hamburglars on the team, expect junior Gina Majmudar to be one of the top two or three singles seeds. Slotted at number one last year, Majmudar was the only singles player to have a losing record, yet she was also the only Crimson netwoman to make first-team All Ivy.

What Majmudar did was force Harvard's opponents to use their best player to beat her opening the door for the Crimson's other five singles players to rack up the wins. These included sophomore number-two seed Mylin Torres, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year; sophomore Gabriela Hricko: and the co-captains, Kate Roiter and Kelly Granat.

On the doubles side, Roiter and Granat would team up to be the top seed in the same way that Majmudar was in singles. The Roiter/Granat duo was only 2-11, but the other two teams--Majmudar/Torres and sophomore Julia Kim/Hricko--were a combined 24-9 in dual matches.

Of course, Graham has to find someone to replace Madura. So far, he's looking closely at a pair of freshmen, Ivy Wang and Rosemary She. Though Wang is recovering from a stress fracture, Graham believes that both will see some varsity action this year.

The lineup is a major question for the Crimson, but it's practically the only one. It is almost certain that Harvard will have a sound team from now until May, which gives coach Graham one less thing to worry about.

WOMEN'S TENNIS

Record: 14-9

Ivy League: 7-0

Coach: Gordon Graham

Captains: Kelly Granat '95, Kate Roiter '95

Key Returnees: Gabriela Hricko '98, Gina Majmudar '98, Mylin Torres '98

New Faces: Ivy Wang '99, Rosemary She '99

Key Loss: Maryla Madura '97