No. 21 M. Tennis To Face Young Quinnipiac

The No. 21 Harvard men’s tennis team will begin this weekend’s two regional rounds of the NCAA tennis tournament with a match against Quinnipiac, a team as fresh and inexperienced as the Crimson is veteran and established. Entering tomorrow’s contest, the Bobcats (12-4, 8-0 Northeast) will have everything to gain at the Beren Tennis Center—but will the Crimson (17-6, 7-0 Ivy) feel the pressure of having everything to lose?

Harvard enters the contest as the tournament’s 16-seed, an honor coming on the heels of the team’s Ivy title and unblemished conference record.

The squad also boasts two top-100 players—No. 36 co-captain David Lingman and No. 89 junior Jonathan Chu—both of whom have been chosen to compete in the forthcoming individual NCAA competitions.

Three players—Chu, Lingman and sophomore Brandon Chiu—are first-team All-Ivy. Lingman was even the Ivy Player of the Year, the senior’s second such honor in as many years.

“We’re the underdogs, and there’s no question about that,” said Quinnipiac coach Mike Quitko, whose eight-man lineup will feature five freshmen to Harvard’s probable four seniors and two juniors. “But my team is young, and maybe, being young, they’ll just be foolish enough to think they can win.

“And you never know what happens if teams think they can win.”

The Bobcats have won their last three contests, dropping only three dual match points along the way.

And as Quitko mentioned, the team has done so with a remarkably young squad, relying for much of the season on three freshman and two sophomores in the singles lineup as well as four freshman and a sophomore in doubles.

Bobcats rookies have won 38 matches this season, and of the two seniors and one junior on the Bobcats, only one—senior Eric Raymundo—has played consistently, accumulating an 8-2 record this spring between the fifth and sixth spots.

“[Harvard] will definitely be one of the better teams we’ve played if not the best team that we’ve played,” Quitko said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for us, we have nothing to lose...so I think we’re going to come in very relaxed.”

The Crimson has a legitimate shot at advancing to the Sweet 16—though that opportunity becomes a bit more pressing because the team is loaded with talented senior soon to graduate.

And as Quitko said, anything can happen in a day.

“We’re looking to take Qunnipiac as seriously as we have taken any other team this year,” Chu proclaimed.

Harvard has begun attending two shorter practices a day rather than one long one in order to focus on specifics and match-play.

“Fine-tuning at this point, refining, rather than brute-force drilling,” explained Chu.

After all, the team hardly needs brute-force drilling.

Lingman has won all six of his singles matches since the team’s seven-match winning streak began, while Chu and senior Chris Chiou have each taken five of six and junior Martin Wetzel has triumphed in four of his five.

Using 11 different doubles players this undefeated Ivy season, the Crimson lost just eight individual matches. Moreover, the squad won every team doubles point with 10 different pairs.

The Crimson has enjoyed more than a fair share of success; however, despite the stellar season, the bleachers at Beren have never been more than half-full, perhaps because tennis is often perceived as a quiet and individual sport.

The squad hopes that this weekend’s events will clear up the misunderstanding.

“I just think that that’s the X-factor,” Fish said of the effect of a rowdy home crowd.

“You take two great teams, they both are deserving, they both had great wins through the year, and anything you can do to have the enthusiastic and vocal support of your own crowd in a place that you’ve already played in—it can’t be anything but a help, as far as I’m concerned.”

When the Crimson traveled to Providence for its pivotal match against Brown—one which would ultimately decide the Ivy title—Bears fans shook Pizzitola Sports Center floors and screamed their throats hoarse.

Fish called the match “a thrill,” adding “that’s the kind of stuff we train for.”

Nguyen deemed it “by far the most exciting match in my career.”

Said Lingman, “It was exciting. We don’t get to play in very many matches with a lot of fans, whether they’re for us or against us.”

As Harvard enters the tournament—during a weekend in which the men’s and women’s matches are the only home Crimson events, no less—the team looks to its fans to make the difference.

With a win tomorrow, the Crimson would advance on Sunday to play the winner of the Tulane-Notre Dame match, one which will also be played tomorrow.

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