M. Tennis Rebounds With Wins Over Penn, Princeton

The No. 43 Harvard men’s tennis team took a step in the right direction this weekend, sweeping its Penn-Princeton road trip and avoiding the difficulties that had plagued the squad in weeks past.

“I was really, really pleased with the effort of our guys this weekend,” said coach Dave Fish ’72 of his squad’s 6-1 and 4-3 defeats of the Tigers and Quakers, respectively. “Losing is a habit and winning is a habit, and each one is a little contagious.”

The victories were due, in large part, to the success of the Crimson’s doubles play. Though frequently jumbled in recent months, the pairings finally clicked this weekend, amassing five victories in six contests.

HARVARD 6, PRINCETON 1

With the first and third doubles matches complete—a split between the Crimson and the Tigers (13-7, 2-3)—the fate of the doubles point rested squarely on the shoulders of the players occupying Princeton’s middle court Saturday in New Jersey.

For the Tigers’ fans, this was a good thing—but for the Harvard fans, not so much, as Crimson junior Brandon Chiu and freshman Ashwin Kumar trailed 7-4, one game from elimination.

“Princeton’s doubles has been very impressive,” Fish said. “They’ve been pretty explosive.”

Chiu and Kumar would push their match to a tiebreak, though, and win it.

“Most of the time, [that kind of comeback] doesn’t happen,” Chiu said. “But sometimes, you make enough shots—and you put the other guys under enough pressure—that they start missing some shots, and you [keep] making them.”

With the doubles point in hand, Harvard would take five of six singles matches, all in straight sets, for a 6-1 victory and a weekend Ivy sweep.

“The singles [were] very straightforward,” Fish said

And it was, after last weekend’s disappointing split—the loss to Columbia was the Crimson’s first league defeat since April 21, 2002—a welcome showing.

“It started to feel, [Saturday], like they were starting to believe again,” Fish said, “and there’s a lot of energy to that.”

HARVARD 4, PENN 3

After dropping five doubles points in as many dual matches, the Crimson finally managed to take one of its own in Pennsylvania Friday, downing the Quakers (14-6, 2-3) on all three courts and earning the early 1-0 match advantage.

It had been a while.

“We tried doubles combination No. 2000 [against Penn],” joked Fish, who has shuffled his lineups routinely of late. “It seemed to work pretty well. We gave the guys a little fresh look.”

Playing with co-captain Jonathan Chu in the top doubles contest was Jordan Bohnen, a senior who has seen little time in recent months, and mainly towards the bottom of the ladder.

The result? An 8-3 win.

“We practiced really well, we warmed up really well, and we came out firing,” Chu said. “We took it, and we ran with it.”

As did the second and third doubles teams, which won 8-3 and 8-6, respectively.

After last weekend’s Ivy-opening matches saw Harvard win only two of its six doubles contests—both in tiebreaks—this early cushion was more than welcome.

“Everybody’s been through a lot of losing,” Fish admitted. “We jumped out to a good lead, which, as it turned out, we needed.”

The doubles point would indeed prove vital, for Harvard and the Quakers would split the singles competition right down the middle, 3-3.

The Crimson left Penn with a 4-3 win in hand, though not without some good, old-fashioned, drunken Quaker heckling—“it was no-holds-barred,” Fish said, laughing.

When the bus left Penn, though, the players were focused on one thing.

“Once a team gets a little bit of a win, they start to say ‘I’m better than this,’” said Fish, who commended his players for “keeping their heads up.”

“Sometimes, it’s just a spark that ignites it.”

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