M. Tennis Proves It's The Team to Beat

The Harvard men’s tennis team began its Ivy League season in style with a sweep of the New York Ivies of Columbia and Cornell.

“It’s a great start to the season,” sophmore George Turner said.

The win provided further ammunition for the rest of the league, who are clearly gunning for the Crimson (10-5, 2-0 Ivy).

‘We’re the top target for everybody to beat,” men’s tennis associate coach Peter Mandeau said. “Teams look at us as if they beat Harvard, it makes their season.”

Defending champion Harvard is the highest ranked Ivy team, currently holding the No. 27 ranking nationally.

With the victories the Crimson rebounded from a disappointing 1-2 spring break.

Harvard 5, Cornell 2

On Friday, the Crimson trekked to Ithaca to face the Big Red (14-4, 2-1 Ivy) and emerged with a 5-2 win.

Harvard took the early lead by capturing the doubles point. The first doubles team of sophomore David Lingman and freshman Jonathan Chu defeated Stefan Paulovic and Sunil Iyer, 8-5. The second doubles team was defeated, but sophomore Cliff Nguyen and captain William Lee captured the point easily by virtue of an 8-4 win.

Cornell was without two of its best singles players, and the Crimson took quick advantage. Lingman and Chu won the first two singles matches, with Chu cruising easily, 6-2, 6-1. Nguyen fell to defeat in the third slot, but sophomore Mark Riddell won the No. 4 singles 6-3, 6-0 and Turner took the No. 6 singles point.

Harvard 7, Columbia 0

Harvard went on to an even easier 7-0 win on Saturday in New York City against Columbia.

Harvard swept the doubles matches for the day’s first point, with the No. 1 team of Lingman and Chu winning 8-0. Playing the No. 3 singles for the match was sophomore Chris Chiou and freshman Dan Haimovic, who made good use of their rare starting role with a tight 9-8(6) win.

The doubles sweep was fitting because Harvard also swept the singles matches. Lingman and Chu took the first two singles slots, with Nguyen and Riddell both winning handily in the No. 3 and No. 4 spots. Lee had the easiest time of any Harvard player, winning his sixth singles match over Columbia’s Arjun Kaul 6-0, 6-1. Junior Oli Choo, slowly coming back from a hand injury that forced him to miss the matches over spring break, won in the No. 5 position.

‘It’s good to have [Oli] back.” Mandeau said. “But it’s important to have depth.”

Which Harvard does, in spades. The pairing of Chiou and Haimovic at No. 3 doubles against Columbia is evidence of that. Harvard has been very successful at winning the doubles points all year, but brought in a different team to experiment with chemistry and still suffered no setback.

“It’s important for us to try different doubles combinations,” Mandeau said. “By trying different combinations, it gives us more options at the end of the season.”

“Depth is the strength of our team,” Turner added. “From No. 3-9, anyone on our team can play. With the four, five and six slots, in tight matches, we feel we can play, even against the best teams.”

Harvard has some home cooking coming up on schedule, with matches against Penn on Friday afternoon at Beren Tennis Center and against Princeton on Saturday.