Short-Handed Women's Tennis Squad Falters

With six players entirely new to team competition on the No. 26 Harvard women’s tennis team, the Crimson faced a tough test on Friday with matches against No. 19 Kentucky and BU.

Coming into the spring season, the team incredibly found itself too short on numbers to compete.

“This team has been beset by more challenging situations personally than any team I’ve ever seen,” coach Gordon Graham said. “We had four players from the fall who decided to or were unable to play in the spring. You had extenuating circumstances for every one of them.”

Faced with the challenge of fielding a team, Graham contacted Harvard’s club team looking for players. Four new players—junior Vilsa Curto, who is also a Crimson editor, freshman Alejandra Duartre, senior Julia Forgie, and sophomore Rachel Gottlieb—eventually moved up to the varsity squad.

Friday morning, these newcomers were thrown against one of the nation’s top teams in the Wildcats (5-0). While the Crimson (0-2) lost 5-2, the match proved the ability of Harvard’s patched together team to compete at the highest level.

Playing against Kentucky’s top doubles team of Kim Coventry and Joelle Schwenk, ranked third in the country, the Crimson’s duo of Beier Ko and Lena Litvak trailed 0-4 before rallying to take a 7-4 lead. Ko and Litvak eventually lost 7-5 in a tiebreak, but the match demonstrated the promise of the pairing.

“[Kentucky is] such an experienced team, and Beier Ko and Lena Litvak had never played together,” Graham said.

Forgie’s first intercollegiate match—new to the team as a senior—gave her faith in her own talent.

“It’s definitely more intense. You’re playing against girls who have been playing all their lives,” Forgie said. “[Curto and I] lost our doubles match, but the score was 8-4, so we realized we were in that league.”

Returning to the courts in the afternoon to face the Terriers (4-0), the team won fairly easily at both the first and second doubles positions to capture the match’s doubles point.

Five of the six singles matches were concluded fairly decisively. Ko and Litvak won 6-2, 6-2, and 7-5, 6-2 respectively, while Forgie, Curto, and Duarte lost, leaving the team score tied 3-3.

Playing in the No. 2 singles position, captain Preethi Mukundan found herself in a highly competitive match. Mukundan lost the first set 6-2, but seemed to turn the match around in the second. Up 3-1, Mukundan successfully staved off opponent Yana Sadovskaya’s attempt to break her serve. Mukundan then won the next four games, winning the second set and taking a 1-0 lead in the third.

At that point, the effect of six and a half hours of tennis caught up with Mukundan, and she began struggling with cramps. As the Harvard and BU teams looked on, Mukundan’s hand cramped up, leaving her gasping in pain between points.

Mukundan fought on, winning two more games, but the cramps proved too much to overcome, as she lost the third set, 6-2.

“We want to be a team that fights hard for everything and battles. We want to compete for every last point,” Graham said. “What better example than Preethi’s match can you have of giving everything you’ve got?”

After four consecutive Ivy League titles, only time will prove if the Crimson can repeat for a fifth time. Mukundan believes that Friday’s matches will prove a building block for future success.

“The losses don’t mean much in the long run,” she said. “I feel we got a lot out of the matches yesterday. Everybody had a chance to fight and battle.”

—Staff writer Tyler D. Sipprelle can be reached at sipprell@fas.harvard.edu.