Chu Advances to Final Four in Singles, Doubles

Co-captain Jonathan Chu became the first Harvard tennis player to advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tennis tournament since James Blake ’01 when the former defeated Texas’ Travis Helgeson in straight sets yesterday. Today, the senior continued to roll, extending his collegiate career at least one more match with a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (6) stunner over Kentucky’s Jesse Witten, the No. 3 singles player in the country.

“This is arguably the biggest win in my college career,” Chu said, “and to be able to do it in this round at this tournament makes it all that much more humongous for me.

“It’s like a dream,” he added, nearly eight hours after he clinched match point, “and I’m still not awake yet.”

Chu’s run through the tournament, held in College Station, Tex., had been efficient—a total of six sets in his first three matches—until today, when he and Witten stretched their match to three long, grueling, back-and-forth sets.

Struggling with a sore neck and stiff shoulders, Chu lost the first four games quickly—“I couldn’t really turn my head,” he said, “and Jesse was playing really well”—but then, out of nowhere, Chu reeled off seven straight games, securing the initial set and the first game of the second.

“I’d be lying if I said I expected that,” Chu laughed. But all of a sudden, there he was, with a set in hand on one of the nation’s top competitors.

Of course, Witten would rebound, breaking Chu at two-all and staving off break points to take the middle frame by the same count Chu had taken the first.

And then came the decisive final set, one which saw Witten break in the first game and then Chu break back at 3-4. From then on out, it was a stalemate, until Chu finally pulled away with an 8-6 edge in the tiebreak.

“It was really, really, really close all the way through,” Chu said, “so I was just happy to be on the right side.”

Chu’s day wasn’t done, though. As soon as he polished off Witten, the senior joined doubles partner Ashwin Kumar for the quarterfinals of the pairs draw. The duo had already won their first two matches in three sets each, and today would prove no different.

Chu and Kumar dropped the first set 6-4 to Auburn’s Alex Schweitzer and Gabor Zoltan—“they were playing just awesome,” Chu said—but the Crimson duo took the second frame by the same margin, and for the second time in one day, Chu found himself facing a grueling third set.

Schweitzer and Zoltan stuck with their bread and butter—they employed hard, aggressive strokes and “they’d just crank their forehands,” said Chu—but according to the Harvard senior, "we kept serving solidly and playing solidly, and we broke at 5-4.

"Eventually, we were able to crack them.”

After more than six hours on the courts, Chu had earned his way into both Final Fours. Not that tomorrow will be any sort of cakewalk—the co-captain will face Baylor’s Benedikt Dorsch, the nation’s top player, in the singles competition at 12 p.m. When that match is over, Chu and Kumar will take on Georgia’s top-seeded Antonio Ruiz and Alex Isner.

“For me, it’s going to be a great experience no matter what,” Chu said. “That’s the attitude I took on the court today, and I’ve already done more than I could have ever imagined.”

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