M. Tennis Almost Upsets No. 1 Illinois

As the No. 21 Harvard men’s tennis team prepared to face No. 1 Illinois in May’s NCAA Sweet 16, Crimson coach Dave Fish ’72 downplayed the magnitude of the contest, pointing out dryly that “we’ve played other good teams.” And though the prospect of facing the defending national champion Fighting Illini—undefeated in two years—was somewhat daunting, Fish remained serious nonetheless.

For Harvard (19-7, 7-0 Ivy), the road to the third round of the NCAA Tournament was anything but easy. Entering the contest, the Crimson had played 17 teams which ended the season nationally ranked—and had beaten 11 of them.

In fact, the softest portion of Harvard’s schedule was the end, the mini-season of Ivy competition, which the Crimson swept to secure an NCAA berth.

The Crimson snatched the Ancient Eight title from No. 50 Brown with a win in Providence, a contest which Harvard co-captain Cliff Nguyen deemed at the time, “the most exciting match of my career.”

The Bears following was rowdy, rowdier than anything Harvard’s Beren Tennis Center had hosted all season. Some came in costume and some with props, and the floors of the Brown’s Pizzitola Sports Center literally shook with energy.

“I know it was chaos,” Fish remarked after the match, “and it felt somewhat like a free-for-all, but...what a thrill for our guys to be able to play in something like that and perform.”

And perform the Crimson did. Senior Mark Riddell and co-captain David Lingman, relying on their stores of experience, clinched the doubles point with a tiebreak win.

Harvard would go on to take four more hotly contested singles matches en route to a 5-2 victory.

Entering the NCAA Tournament, then, it was this contest—and its level of intensity which Fish admitted “we haven’t seen...before”—that stood out.

Brown was perhaps not the Crimson’s stiffest competition, but it was the most exciting to date, the most singularly electric.

But then, the second round of the NCAAs proved reminiscent of that day in Providence, and the Crimson produced its most determined and composed effort in a long while with a systematic 4-2 win over No. 19 Tulane.

Sophomore Brandon Chiu deemed the home throngs “the biggest crowd of the year and the biggest crowd since I’ve been here,” and Lingman especially rose to the occasion, dismantling the Green Wave’s No. 11 Michael Kogan 6-2, 6-4 with some spectacular moves.

But it was the third round—the faceoff with Illinois—which won’t soon be forgotten.

The Fighting Illini had not lost in 62 tries. The team claimed the No. 1 singles player in the nation, Brian Wilson, and he and fellow senior Phil Stolt also comprised the No. 5 doubles team.

The match would be, according to just about anybody, a mighty challenge—but one which Harvard eagerly accepted.

From the match’s very inception, the action was close. Too close for the Illini’s comfort.

Though the Orange and Blue took the doubles point with two 8-6 wins, Crimson senior Chris Chiou evened the dual match score to 1-1.

And then it was 2-2.

Then 3-3.

And finally, in the deciding match, Harvard co-captain Cliff Nguyen forced a third set. All eyes were on the senior, the very player who had clinched that contest against Brown a month before.

The Crimson sat a single set away from knocking off the top seed, handing Illinois its first loss in two calendar years and storming the Elite Eight, a round reached only once in Harvard history.

But Nguyen lost the set, and with it, a shot at Harvard history. And just like that, the careers of five Harvard seniors—Lingman, Nguyen, Riddell, Chiou and George Turner—were lost as well.

But the team had turned heads along the way.

“I think we really let the country know and the tennis community know that Harvard is one of the best teams in the country,” Chiou said afterward. “We came very close to beating an undefeated team.”

Incredibly close.

“It was just unbelievable,” Fish said, somewhat at a loss for words. “I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.”

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