M. Tennis Advances to ECAC Final Round

Heading to the ECAC Championships in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., the two-time defending champion Harvard men’s tennis team had much to ponder. The departure of last year’s glut of senior talent had left the Crimson inexperienced and, in recent weeks, seemingly uninspired.

But now, after winning three straight matches to advance to today’s finals, the squad has something to smile about.

Top-seeded Harvard secured its finals berth with wins over St. Joseph’s, Pennsylvania and Princeton, and the Crimson will face third-seeded Penn State this morning for a third straight ECAC crown.

“We really hung together,” said Crimson coach Dave Fish ’72, “and we need that from our guys, because we’re a less experienced team than last year’s, but we’ve got the talent.”

HARVARD 6, PRINCETON 1

“The match was closer than the score would indicate,” assistant coach Terry London offered after the completion of yesterday’s match. “It was tough.”

The doubles competition was tight, but Harvard clinched with two matches to Princeton’s one.

Though the third duo of Gideon Valkin and Shantanu Dhaka lost 8-6, the sophomores fought back from three breaks down—a 6-1 deficit—before falling.

“They were just getting pummeled,” Fish said, “but they fought back, and that put the pressure on [the Tigers’] No. 2 [doubles] team, so I thought they did a good job.”

That pressure proved enough to help the Crimson secure the doubles point, and with that, as is so often the case, came the momentum.

Harvard took all but one of the singles matches, and that, Valkin’s, was a three-set loss ending with a 10-8 tiebreak.

“[Valkin] competed very well,” London said. “It came down to a couple points in the end, and it could have gone either way. Actually, it was a positive thing, because they were both competing so well, and you can’t [get that] in practice.”

HARVARD 6, PENN 1

The Crimson was sharp in doubles competition on Saturday, winning 8-2, 8-3 and 8-4 from the first match to the third.

“We’re still experimenting with our doubles combinations so far,” said captain Jonathan Chu, “just because we have so many new faces this year, but so far so good.”

Of the three teams Harvard used, only one—that of Chu and junior Brandon Chiu—has any history, and that only extends back to the end of last spring’s season.

“We played a much crisper match,” Fish said of the second day of competition in comparison to the first. “On paper, I thought that Penn was a pretty difficult team to take on.”

Freshman Ashwin Kumar would probably agree, as he dropped the third singles match 6-3, 6-3. The loss followed a solid win from Friday, and the weekend provided Kumar with his first big tournament experience.

“He’s has been doing fine,” Fish said of his rookie. “It’s a big move to put a freshman up there, but he’s perfectly capable of playing at that level. I think he’ll be fine. [His loss] just sort of stands out when everybody else wins.”

Not only did every other Harvard player win, but senior Martin Wetzel was the only other player to drop a set, doing so in his 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-4 victory.

Chu continued his dominance in the top spot with a 6-1, 6-4 win and the bottom three singles players—Dhaka, captain Jason Beren and Valkin—all dispatched their opponents handily.

HARVARD7, ST. JOSEPH’S 0

The scores were tight in doubles competition, as Kumar and Wetzel pulled out a 9-7 win and Dhaka and Beren an 8-6 victory. But when it came to singles, the Crimson showed no mercy.

Harvard lost just 22 games throughout the six matches, with Chu and Wetzel losing just two apiece and Beren and Valkin just three.

“We knew we were going to have easier matches,” Chu said of the beginning of the draw, which paired top-seeded Harvard with the bottom-seeded Hawks, “and we got a warmup match, essentially.”

Indeed, it was something the Crimson needed after a couple weekends of sluggish performances, and the team’s collective showings only continue to improve.

“We were able to get some rust out of our engine and get some energy,” Fish said of the first days of competition.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.