W. Tennis Notebook: Delaney-Smith Inspires W. Tennis

In seeking advice on how to pull an upset against a No. 1 Stanford team, Harvard women’s tennis coach Gordon Graham turned to an expert—Harvard women’s basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

Delaney-Smith is famed for being the only coach to lead a No. 16 seed to victory in an NCAA basketball tournament when Harvard beat Stanford in 1998. She gave a talk to the Harvard women’s tennis team on Monday at Graham’s request.

“Basically her take-home message was once you get to that level, it doesn’t really matter,” said Harvard captain Sanja Bajin. “The Stanford team might be better than us in actual tennis but that doesn’t mean we still can beat them an any given day.”

The parallels between 1998 women’s basketball and 2003 women’s tennis aren’t perfect, but they are similar.

In this year’s tennis tournament, Stanford is the No. 1 national seed, not the No. 1 regional seed. Harvard is not seeded at all, though the team did advance by beating the national No. 16 seed.

Delaney-Smith has been a vocal supporter of the tennis team. She was in the stands for both the Ivy-clinching victory over Penn and Harvard’s NCAA tournament victories.

“She’s a tennis fanatic too,” Graham said. “She loves tennis and loves this opportunity to talk to them. We’ll try anything.”

After the Arizona victory, Delaney-Smith was not aware that Stanford was the women’s tennis team’s next opponent. When she heard of the parallels, her eyes widened and she smiled.

True Student-Athletes

While Stanford is Harvard’s opponent on the court, the Registrar’s Office might prove to be an even greater challenge.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of not only the NCAA Sweet 16 but also Harvard’s exam period.

Those who have exams will be taking them in the team’s hotel under a Harvard proctor’s supervision as close as possible to the time they are given on campus. Although Harvard’s match is at 2 p.m. tomorrow, Bajin said the team would be able to take its morning exams in the evening.

Conflicts with exams have been commonplace for spring sports like tennis, track, baseball and softball in recent seasons.

Bajin said, following the victory over Arizona, that she was not exactly looking forward to taking her exams in Florida.

“But hey, I’ll do it,” she added. “I’ll take that over losing today.”

Sophomore Courtney Bergman is most affected. While the team tournament lasts until May 18—and could end for Harvard as early as tomorrow—Bergman must stay even later for the NCAA individual tournament. She will be taking all of her finals in Florida.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do,” Bergman said. “It’s like I’m going to start going to school there. It’s crazy.”

Coaches and Awards

The opponent is Stanford, and the setting is Florida, but neither is unfamiliar to Harvard’s assistant coaches.

Volunteer assistant coach Ania Bleszynski, graduated from Stanford in 1998, where she was a four-time All-American, and an individual finalist. She is currently a Kirkland House tutor seeking a ph.D. in physics at Harvard.

Assistant coach Stephanie Nickitas was a six-time All-American at Florida. During her career from 1995 to 1999, the Gators made the team finals four times and won two national titles. Stanford was the spoiler in both championship defeats, including the last match of her career.

On the awards front, both team and ITA regional honors were handed out to Harvard players in recent days.

Bergman was named the East Regional’s Player to Watch, Bajin won the Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship, and Graham was named Regional Coach of the Year.

Bajin and freshman Lyly Cao Minh were named the team’s most improved players. Bajin went undefeated this year after missing almost all of last season due to injury. Minh has worked herself into the starting lineup for NCAAs.

Bergman and sophomore Susanna Lingman were named next year’s captains. Bergman and Lingman make up Harvard’s No. 1 doubles team and play at No. 1 and No. 2 singles, respectively.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.