Close Losses Mark Weekend

The Harvard men’s tennis team knew this weekend would be tough. But the squad didn’t expect it to be this tough.

The Crimson dropped two hard-fought 4-3 matches on the road to Penn and Princeton, snapping what had been a three-match win streak and coming agonizingly close to beating two of the strongest teams in the Ivy League this year.

The loss brought Harvard’s record for the spring season to 7-9 and evened out the Crimson’s Ivy record at 2-2.

“We had chances to do it,” coach Dave Fish ’72 said of Harvard’s barely squandered opportunity to come out of the toughest road trip in the Ivy league unblemished. “We just didn’t take those chances. The guys played hard, but we didn’t have the fire we had last week.”

PRINCETON 4, HARVARD 3

The Tigers pounced early on a Harvard team still reeling from a near collapse late in the previous day’s match. Playing outdoors at Princeton’s Lenz Tennis center, the Tigers (11-5, 4-1 Ivy) locked up their victory by winning one of two nearly simultaneous third-set tiebreaks over the Crimson to turn a 3-2 lead into a 4-3 win.

Junior Dan Nguyen, playing at No. 3, saw three sets worth of work fade away in minutes along with Harvard’s hope of winning, as he dropped his tiebreak, 7-2.

Playing two courts over, No. 1 sophomore Chris Clayton turned a 1-4 deficit in the tiebreak into a 7-4 match victory with six consecutive points, but lost his chance to be the Crimson’s hero after Nguyen’s quick, frustrating loss.

A dejected Nguyen blamed his frustrating tiebreak performance on an overly aggressive transition game.

“I was serving for the match, 5-4, and then—I don’t know if it was a coaching change, or if I tightened up—but he started making me hit more balls,” Nguyen said. “He didn’t really try to hit winners, and the way I generally lose is trying to go for too much and beating myself.”

Harvard’s other two singles wins came from senior No. 4 and co-captain Gideon Valkin (6-1, 7-6) and No. 5 sophomore Sasha Ermakov, who won a trying three-setter (5-4, 6-7, 6-3), persevering in a pressure situation that would have tripped him up just weeks earlier.

Valkin’s win boosts his current singles win streak to eight games.

“I’m feeling very mentally strong,” Valkin said. “I came out firing and played one of my better matches against Princeton.”

Junior No. 2 Ashwin Kumar lost, 6-1, 6-3, while an injury to usual senior No. 4 and co-captain Scott Denenberg forced Ermakov and Valkin to rotate one spot up and allowed senior Shantanu Dhaka to play at No. 6, where he lost 6-3, 6-3.

All three Crimson doubles pairs lost, with the No. 1 duo of Kumar and Ermakov coming closest to a win with an 8-7(7) defeat. Denenberg and Valkin lost, 8-6, at No. 2, while Nguyen and freshman Michael Hayes fell by the same score at No. 3.

PENN 4, HARVARD 3

The road trip opened auspiciously for the Crimson, as Harvard won the doubles point and one singles match. But the Crimson dropped four straight matches to wind up with a 4-3 loss.

In doubles play, Kumar and Ermakov won at No. 1, 8-5, while No. 2 Denenberg and Valkin lost, 8-3. Hayes and Nguyen, playing at No. 3, won, 8-6.

“Michael started playing loud, with a ton of energy,” Nguyen said.

Valkin’s play in singles was also solid, as he won, 7-6, 6-2, at No. 5 and was the first off the court.

After Valkin’s win, though, Harvard’s roar became a whimper, as the Crimson lost four straight matches at No. 1-4.

At No. 1, Clayton lost, 6-3, 7-5, in a match that he felt was a sub-par performance for both players.

“I could have pulled the trigger at a lot of points, and I didn’t,” Clayton said.

Kumar was stalled by one of the Quakers’ strongest weapons, losing, 6-3, 6-4, at No. 2, while Nguyen lost, 7-5, 6-3, at No. 3.

At No. 4, Denenberg, who had played through sore legs in previous weeks—and who had been working double-duty to complete his thesis in biochemical sciences due this Wednesday—ran out of steam, losing, 7-6, 6-1.

—Staff writer Jonathan B. Steinman can be reached at steinman@fas.harvard.edu.