M. Tennis Suffers First Loss of Season to No. 46 ’Cats

After getting off to a solid 5-0 start to its dual-match season, the No. 43 Harvard men’s tennis team lost its first contest of the year 5-2 to Northwestern Saturday afternoon at the Murr Center.

No. 46 Northwestern (9-3, 4-0 Big Ten) came into the match riding a three-game winning streak. On paper, Saturday’s match figured to be a tight matchup, and the results on the court proved no different.

Co-captain Dalibor Snyder and sophomore Mark Riddell started things off well for Harvard, cruising to an 8-3 victory at No. 3 doubles.

At No. 2 doubles, junior Dave Lingman and sophomore Chris Chiou paired up well together early, but often got stuck hitting easy sitters and went down 5-2 early in their match.

A particularly comic moment ensued when the Crimson appeared to put away a short-angled volley to win a point. Harvard’s assistant volunteer coach, Michael Flanagan, sitting on the nearby bench, saw the ball coming at him and suddenly grabbed it after one bounce.

While the Wildcats’ Jackie Jenkins would likely not have been able to track down the ball to return the shot, Flanagan’s actions clearly violated the rules and the Crimson had to forfeit the point. Lingman and Chiou ended up losing the match 8-3.

The deciding match for the doubles point was at the No. 1 spot, where the stellar Crimson combo of “Choo-Chu”—junior Oli Choo and freshman Jonathan Chu—held a comfortable 7-5 lead. But Northwestern’s Tom Hanus and Jamie Sahara broke Chu’s serve after four exciting deuces to cut the lead to 7-6.

Eventually the match would go to a tiebreaker after the Wildcats staved off a few Harvard match points.

“We had some bad luck here and there,” Chu said.

Hanus and Sahara stole the match’s momentum and walked away with the tiebreaker, 7-4, and Northwestern emerged with a 1-0 lead going into the singles.

“They were riding high,” Chu said. “It was like a little monster that grew as the game went on.”

The Wildcats won the first set in four of the six singles matches. Only Chu, playing at No. 2 singles, and sophomore Cliff Nguyen, at No. 3, started off with one-set leads. Chu finished first, polishing off Sahara, 6-3, 6-2. Nguyen, whose opponent, Ryan Edlefsen, needed to take a medical timeout after he rolled his ankle, won his match easily as well, 6-4, 6-1.

But the Crimson’s 2-1 advantage was tenuous. Harvard would not win another set all day.

Lingman, previously undefeated at No. 1 singles, was locked into a tough battle with the freshman Hanus. After going down 3-0 in the first set, Lingman stormed back to 5-5. Hanus reestablished control in the last two games and won the set 7-5. He then ran away with the second set, 6-3.

Northwestern also rolled to straight-set victories in the bottom three singles matches.

Harvard co-captain William Lee, playing at the No. 4 spot, fought hard but lost both sets to Josh Axler 7-5, 7-5. Freshman Brian Wan started strong, dropping the first set to Jenkins by a close 7-5 score, but was quickly overpowered 6-2 in the second set.

At No. 6 singles, Wildcat senior Joost Hol rounded out the action with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over sophomore George Turner.

“It seemed like three of the six [singles players] got down early,” Lee said. “It was the first time this season we had lost the doubles point.”

The Crimson will travel to Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday for the four-day Blue-Gray Classic. It will be the team’s first outdoor action of the spring season.

“Personally, I enjoy playing indoors, but tennis is meant to be an outdoor sport,” Chu said. “As long as you’re in shape it shouldn’t matter.”