W. Tennis Opens Ivy Season With Two Road Victories in New York

As expected, the Harvard women’s tennis team rolled into the Ivy season with solid wins against Cornell and Columbia this weekend. With the pair of victories, the Crimson improves its overall record to 11-6.

“This weekend was a success since we only lost one match,” co-captain Courtney Bergman said. “Everyone was really focused and took care of business.”

Harvard (11-6, 2-0) dropped Cornell 6-1 Friday, and then beat up on the Lions 7-0 Saturday afternoon, picking up two impressive road victories.

“We couldn’t have done much better because those teams are just gunning for you,” sophomore Elsa O’Riain said. “It was good to start off the Ivies like that.”

HARVARD 7, COLUMBIA 0

Harvard extended its shutout streak against Columbia (6-5, 0-3) to three seasons Saturday, as it took just over two hours to shut down the Lions in front of a crowd of more than 100 fans.

All three of the Crimson’s doubles teams triumphed, allowing the opposition to win only seven games combined.

The No. 1 doubles pair of junior Melissa Anderson and freshman Celia Durkin, ranked 41st in the nation, toppled Columbia’s duo of Angela Hendry and Milena Kachar, 8-2, while Bergman and O’Riain prevailed, 8-4, in the No. 2 spot.

Co-captain Susanna Lingman and junior Eva Wang, who prior to this weekend had not played on the court together since last fall, defeated their opponents 8-1 at the third position.

In singles play, no player from Columbia won more than four games in a set as the Crimson rolled past the Lions in all six contests.

Lingman filled in ably for Bergman at the No. 1 spot by overpowering Kachar, 6-3, 6-2. Durkin, who faced Hendry in doubles, claimed another win at No. 2 by a score of 6-4, 6-2.

Senior Alexis Martire shut out the Lions’ captain Miriam Rahali in the second set to finish the match 6-3, 6-0 in the No. 3 position. Anderson, sophomore Preethi Mukundan and Wang were victorious in spots four, five and six to complete the shutout.

HARVARD 6, CORNELL 1

Defeating the Big Red was not as easy as the score suggested, as the Crimson took a while to get into gear in its singles matches after crushing Cornell (8-5, 1-2) in doubles play.

“Everybody had a rough time starting out in singles because it was so windy,” Wang said. “Even if there is a huge disparity between two players, the wind brings down the level of the better player.”

The Crimson got rolling eventually, however, as the top three singles players—Bergman, Lingman, and Martire—each took home straight-set victories. Bergman won 6-1, 6-3, Lingman took a 6-4, 6-0 decision, and Martire overcame her opponent 6-3, 6-0.

Mukundan at No. 5 and Wang at No. 6 added to Harvard’s total with 6-3, 6-1 and 6-3, 6-2 victories.

Cornell managed its only point of the match at the No. 4 position, as Kasia Preneta defeated Anderson 6-3 in both sets.

The Big Red claimed only two games between its three doubles pairs against the powerful Crimson lineup. Durkin and Anderson at No. 1 and Lingman and Wang at No. 3 shut out the opposition, 8-0. Bergman and O’Riain won without much difficulty in the No. 2 spot against Cornell’s Melanie Tu and Erika Takeuchi, who scored Cornell’s only game victories.

“Even though we’re not playing as highly ranked opponents, it’s important to focus. It almost makes it harder, since they’re the underdogs and we’ve got more to lose,” Bergman said.

Harvard expects to face its toughest opponents of the Ivy League next weekend when it returns home to take on Penn and Princeton. After months of playing indoors at home, the Crimson will host its matches under the sun at the Beren Tennis Center, where the team will look to extend its unbeaten league streak.

While Harvard is viewing the league season as a training period for NCAAs, the team is trying not to look past its two hardest Ivy matches.

“We have a big weekend with both matches,” Bergman said. “We’ll just go in with the same mentality knowing that both teams are good.”