M. Tennis Falls to Yale, 4-3, at ECACs

It wasn’t The Game, but the ECAC tournament semifinal between Yale and the Harvard men’s tennis team Sunday afternoon was just as emotional and exciting.

Proving that the Ivy League will be much deeper than last year, the Bulldogs pulled out a 4-3 upset over Harvard at the Beren Tennis Center. The loss killed Harvard’s chance to compete in the National Team Indoors for the second straight fall.

Yale advanced to yesterday’s final against Brown, which defeated Princeton in its semifinal.

“It was a great tennis match,” Harvard Coach David Fish ’72 said. “It’s great for the Ivy League as well.”

Sunday’s Harvard-Yale matchup was highly anticipated ever since the 16-team tournament draw was released Wednesday. Last spring, the Elis had handed the Crimson its only Ivy loss en route to Harvard’s league championship.

The Crimson, seeded No. 1, had rolled over Marist, 6-1 in the first round, and then Columbia, 6-1, in the quarterfinals.

Yale, the fourth seed, beat Colgate 6-1 in the first round. It followed that victory with a 5-2 win over perennial Ivy contender Penn in the quarterfinals.

Blustery winds and an early October cold snap made conditions horrible for tennis.

The match started with the three doubles contests. Yale’s Andrew Rosenfeld and David Goldman struck first, defeating Chris Chiou and Brian Wan, 8-6, at No. 3 doubles. Harvard co-captain William Lee and sophomore Mark Riddell, playing at No. 2 doubles, edged out Chris Shackleton and Ryan Coyle, 8-6 to tie things up.

All eyes turned to the No. 1 match between Yale’s Steve Berke and Dustin West and the Crimson combo of junior Oli Choo and freshman Jonathan Chu. Choo-Chu were losing 7-3, but had managed to save a match point and broke the Eli’s serve. But the Harvard duo, after going up 40-love, gave up five straight points on Chu’s serve and lost the match, 8-4.

Even though Yale had snagged the doubles point, it was Harvard that came out with the early momentum in singles.

Riddell, playing at the No. 5 singles spot, easily took the first set, 6-1, over Rosenfeld. A few minutes later, Chu took advantage of some early breaks to win the first set over Goldman, 6-1, at No. 2 singles. And sophomore Cliff Nguyen, at No. 3, also had won his first set, 6-1 over Shackleton.

Only sophomore George Turner at No. 6 singles lost his first set, 6-4, to Yale’s Johnny Lu.

The other singles matches, at Nos. 1 and 4, were already turning into battles. Choo, at No. 4, had managed to win his first set, 6-4, over Ryan Murpy but the young Bulldog showed signs of coming back.

At the top singles match, Lee had a tall order facing off against Berke, the Northeast’s best player and last season’s Ivy Player of the Year.

“I had just decided to get to the net as much as possible,” Lee said about his pre-game strategy.

It worked in the first set, when Lee’s aggressiveness frustrated Berke, who kept dumping passing shots into the net and having his lobs snagged by the wind. Lee took the first set, 7-5, and drove the home crowd wild.

By that time, Nguyen and Riddell had already won their matches in straight sets, putting the Crimson up 2-1. But the freshman Chu was starting to lose control of his match..

Several close calls by his opponent, combined with missed groundstrokes, angered Chu to the point of his yelling at the umpire. Coach Fish had to calm him down, but Chu had already lost the second set, 6-1, and Goldman was gaining confidence.

“[Chu] let that anger run him from that time on,” Fish said.

The match continued to get tighter. Turner got back into the match at No. 6 singles with a 6-3 win in the second set, but Chu lost the third set, enabling Yale to tie the score 2-2. Berke had steamrolled Lee in the second set, and Choo had lost the second set to Murphy, 7-5.

Turner got the Harvard crowd back in it by completing his comeback with a 6-1 victory in the final set. The Crimson was now one victory away from the ECAC finals.

Lee had been up 5-4 in the third set, but Berke won two straight games, giving him a 6-5 advantage and a chance to serve for the match. The Yale junior held serve and took the third set, 7-5.

“If anyone’s gonna make that match [over Berke], it’s Will,” Fish said. “He’s fearless in these David-Goliath matchups.”

Lee didn’t see himself as overmatched as David, however.

“I expected him to drive more, but I didn’t expect all those drop shots,” Lee said. “I’ve beaten players of his caliber before.”

With the score tied 3-3, the deciding match was on court No. 4, where Choo and Murphy were in the third set. Murphy had control of the match—he simply did not miss. Choo, on the other hand, seemed frustrated at his own play and couldn’t find an opening to attack his opponent.

Murphy took the set, 6-1, to give Yale the match and a trip to the finals.

“We did fine,” Fish said. “We just didn’t win.”

Despite home-court advantage and the No. 1 seed, the Crimson will have to wait until the spring to exact revenge on Yale.