M. Tennis Hosts NCAA Regional

Harvard’s outdoor Beren Tennis Center will once again be the site of the first rounds of the NCAA tournament.

The men’s tennis team received an at-large bid last night, and will host for the second straight year. The women’s tennis team’s outside chance of making the tournament was dashed last night as only league champion and automatic qualifier Penn made it into the field from the Ivies.

“It’s great that we got to host, and it’s great that we got to play a team we’ve seen before,” freshman Jonathan Chu said.

The Crimson (14-5), ranked No. 33 in the nation, will be the No. 2 seed in its four-team bracket. It faces Marist in the first round on May 11 at 2 p.m. The Red Foxes (19-7) are making their fourth straight tournament appearance and were once again the champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

Harvard faced Marist last October during the ECAC championships at Beren, where the Crimson rolled over the Red Foxes 6-1 in the first round.

In the other first-round match-ups, No. 6 Baylor (25-1) will face Hartford (14-3), the America East champion. Harvard has not faced either team this year.

Harvard will host one of the 16 sub-regionals because it finished the regular season as the top-ranked team in the Northeast, edging out Ivy League champion Brown and Virginia Tech.

Last year, Harvard lost to Notre Dame, 4-0, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“The home crowd should be an advantage—a lot of our friends and family will be out there,” sophomore Cliff Nguyen said. “And Marist will be an okay team, but not as tough as last year against Notre Dame.”

Harvard also received entries into the singles and doubles championships, to be held at the end of May in College Station, Texas.

Chu, who has fluctuated between the Nos. 1 and 2 singles positions, is ranked No. 73 in the country and will compete in the singles tournament.

“It’s been a long, fun season, and this is something I personally worked towards,” Chu said. “It would have been nice if [junior] Dave Lingman made it as well, but coming in in January probably didn’t give him enough games.”

The freshman will pair up with junior Oli Choo for the doubles competition. Despite the fact that Chu and Choo did not play doubles together during the Ivy season, they fared well earlier in the year and are ranked 44th in the country.

It is still unclear what Harvard’s line-up will be for the tournament. Several variations of both the singles and doubles lineup were tested during the Ivy season, but none consistently used. The team’s depth, however, allows Harvard coach David Fish ‘72 the flexibility to mix and match with success, as the Crimson’s 14-5 overall record, and second-place league finish indicate.

While the first and second rounds of the 64-team field are held at campus sites, the final four rounds will also be held in College Station from May 18-21. The University of Georgia is seeded first in the tournament, while Tennessee, Illinois, and UCLA round out the top four.