Brown Upsets M. Tennis to Win Ivies

The Harvard men’s tennis team missed its opportunity for a second straight Ivy League title yesterday when it dropped a narrow 4-3 decision to Brown in Providence, R.I. The weekend was not a total loss, however, as the Crimson (13-5, 5-1 Ivy) exacted revenge on Yale, 5-2, at home on Friday.

Though the Bears finished their Ivy season undefeated and will get the automatic Ivy bid to the NCAA tournament, the Crimson’s current ranking (No. 27) in the national polls puts the team in good position to get an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament.

“That’s the real championship,” co-captain William Lee said. “That’s what we’re playing for.”

Harvard still has one more Ivy match left—at home versus Dartmouth on Wednesday afternoon.

“Coming out of the region we still know we’re the team to beat,” co-captain Dalibor Snyder said. “We still have the proven track record. We have to beat Dartmouth if we’re going to make it.”

Brown 4, Harvard 3

In front of a raucous crowd of nearly 300 at the Erickson Athletic Complex, Brown, looking for its first-ever conference championship, upset the Crimson in a showdown that had been highly anticipated since the fall.

The Bears got on the board first when they won at two of the three doubles matches. First, Bears teammates Chris Drake and Justin Natale upended the No. 1 Harvard team of junior David Lingman and freshman Jonathan Chu, 8-5. The Crimson’s solid No. 2 duo, Lee and sophomore Chris Chiou, knotted things up with their 8-4 defeat of Nick Malone and Adil Shamasdin. Brown clinched the point at the No. 3 match, as Brown’s James Cerratani and Nick Goldberg handled Snyder and sophomore Mark Riddell 8-3.

“In almost every game we had break points,” Snyder said. “We could not capitalize on their mistakes.”

During the back-and-forth singles portion of the match, excitement ran high due to some intriguing matchups. Chu, playing No. 1, faced off against Nick Malone—a foe against whom he had split a pair of matches earlier this year. Yesterday afternoon, Chu was the clear winner in a straight-set, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

Natale mirrored those results for Brown, taking out Lingman at No. 2 singles, 6-2, 6-4. Riddell then beat Drake, 6-4, 6-2 at No. 4 singles, but Brown quickly regained the lead a minute later when Goldberg defeated Harvard junior Oli Choo, 6-3, 6-3 in No. 6 singles.

At this point only two matches were left on the courts, both in their third sets. Lee and Shamasdin were in a battle. The senior had a 4-2 lead in the final frame, but Shamasdin stormed back and took the set 6-4, clinching the championship for Brown.

“I didn’t keep up,” Lee said. “I wasn’t very aggressive.”

The Crimson, while disappointed with the loss of its Ivy title hopes, recognized that the results were not indicative of its ability.

“Brown came out really excited, but we came out to play [too],” Snyder said. “We put ourselves in position to win.”

Harvard 5, Yale 2

Friday’s game at the Beren Tennis Center proved to be as good as advertised. Yale had defeated the Crimson in the fall’s ECAC championship semifinals, also at the Beren, and accounted for Harvard’s only loss in its 2001 Ivy campaign. Even though the Bulldogs were winless in the Ivies coming into the weekend, they played with the intensity of the team of the fall.

Yale struck first by winning the doubles point. Lee and Chiou, however, got the first win of the day at No. 2 doubles, defeating Dustin West and Ryan Coyle 8-3. Lingman/Chu fell 8-5 at the No. 1 spot, and Riddell/Snyder followed close behind with an 8-5 loss as well.

Four of the six singles matches were close in the beginning, leading to a tense atmosphere that only heightened the importance of each point. Lingman was unable to get anything going early against Eli freshman Ryan Murphy at No. 1, losing the first set 6-2. Lee, too, lost his first set.

In Harvard’s favor, though, several players were rolling. Choo at No. 6 ran Coyle silly in a 6-1 first set victory, and Riddell, at No. 4, opened with a 6-4 set over Johnny Lu. Chu was enmeshed in a first-set war of attrition with Andrew Rosenfeld which was headed towards a tiebreaker, and sophomore Cliff Nguyen, at No. 3, pulled out a tough 6-4 first set over David Goldman.

Slowly, every match and every point started to go Harvard’s way. Chu won his tiebreaker, 7-2, while Riddell and Nguyen were well on their way to finishing off their respective opponents. Snyder, for his part, pointed to the increasingly threatening-looking weather.

“As soon as the clouds came, everybody knew what was going to happen,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t going to rain, we knew that indoors we had an advantage. That gave everyone a mental edge.”

Soon bad weather forced play indoors to the Murr Center, and Harvard did prove much tougher. Riddell and Nguyen completed their big wins and put Harvard up 2-1. Choo locked horns with Coyle in several lengthy games, but despite dropping several match points, held on to win 7-5 in the second, and final, set.

Parallel to Choo’s match, Chu was close to finished as well. A point after Choo’s victory, Chu also gave the crowd an opportunity to cheer when he closed out the 6-2 second set, clinching the match. Lee came back to win in three sets as well.

M. Tennis 5, Yale 2

Cambridge, MA

Doubles

1. Murphy/Goldman (Y) def. Lingman/Chu (H) 8-5.

2. Lee/Chiou (H) def. West/Coyle (Y) 8-3

3. Rosenfeld/Shackelton (Y) def. Snyder/Riddell (H) 8-5

Singles

1. Murphy (Y) def. Lingman (H) 6-2, 6-7, 6-3

2. Chu (H) def. Rosenfeld (Y) 7-6, 6-2

3. Nguyen (H) vs. Goldman (Y) 6-4, 6-4

4. Riddell (H) def. Lu (Y) 6-4, 6-2

5.Lee (H) def. Shackleton (Y) 2-6, 7-6, 7-5

6. Choo (H) def. Coyle (Y) 6-1, 7-5

Brown 4, M. Tennis 3

Providence, RI

Doubles

1. Drake/Natale (B) def. Lingman/Chu (H) 8-5

2. Lee/Chiou (H) def. Malone/Shamasdin (B) 8-4

3. Cerretani/Goldberg (B) def. Snyder/Riddell (H) 8-3

Singles

1.Chu (H) def. Malone (B) 6-4, 6-2

2. Natale (B) def. Lingman (H) 6-2, 6-4

3. Nguyen (H) def. Cerretani (B) 6-2, 1-6, 6-3

4. Riddell (H) def. Drake (B) 6-4, 6-2

5. Shamasdin (B) def. Lee (H) 4-6, 6-2, 6-4

6. Goldberg (B) def. Choo (H) 6-3, 6-3