Crimson Divides, Can’t Conquer Over Extended Weekend

The Harvard men’s tennis team split over the weekend with mixed results. The Crimson’s captain, Chris Clayton, played at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championship in Tulsa, Okla., while the rest of the team traveled to South Bend, Ind. to play in Notre Dame’s Tom Fallon Invitational.

It was a frustrating long weekend for Clayton, who, having beaten the nation’s No. 17 player in mid-September, came in with high expectations for success against his elite competition.

“I had one of those days where just nothing was going right,” Clayton said of his 6-2, 6-0 loss to eventual quarterfinalist Michael Shabaz of Virginia. “Every rally felt three times as long as it usually would.”

In the consolation bracket, Clayton fell to No. 60 Guillermo Gomez of Georgia Tech.

“I’m certainly looking forward to Regionals as a chance for redemption,” Clayton said, referring to the ITA Northeast Regionals, the most important event of the fall season, which will be held next week at Yale.

While Clayton struggled in Tulsa, six of his teammates faced spirited Midwestern competition on newly-surfaced courts at Notre Dame.

“There’s a terrific level of intensity when you play Big Ten schools,” Harvard coach Dave Fish ’72 said of the opposition, which included Notre Dame, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Western Michigan, and Ball State. “The courts were really slow, so there were lots of long points. It was a great test of our stamina.”

While the Crimson played together on the first two days of competition, the third day of play pitted players with comparable records against each other, and scoring was counted individually, not on a team-by-team basis. In place of a third set, singles matches were decided with 10-point supertiebreakers.

“It’s hard to judge the significance of the outcome of a supertiebreaker,” Fish said. “It’s not entirely indicative of who’s better. You like to continue your momentum into the third set.”

Leading the way for the Crimson in wins was freshman Davis Mangham. After losing his opening singles match, Mangham rallied to win his next five matches. He won his second and third singles matches with increasing ease, taking the second in three sets and cruising through the third in straight sets.

“Davis had some strong performances,” co-captain Mike Kalfayan said. “He’s a big guy with a strong serve and a good all-court game, and he definitely put those strengths to work.”

Mangham teamed with junior Michael Hayes to sweep their three doubles matches, taking two of the three with ease.

Despite generally strong play, Kalfayan’s record was marred by weak performances in his supertiebreakers. Though he won four of the six singles sets he played, slow starts in two supertiebreakers resulted in a 2-1 singles record. Kalfayan posted a matching record in doubles, playing alongside freshman Alistair Felton.

“As a team, we need to get better at knocking our opponents out at the end of matches,” Kalfayan said.

Sophomore Aba Omodele-Lucien started off hot, defeating Notre Dame’s No. 2 player in a supertiebreaker and handily winning a doubles match with junior Sasha Ermakov. But a minor shoulder injury proved enough to knock Omodele-Lucien off his groove, and he lost his next two matches in supertiebreakers. Ermakov and Omodele-Lucien bounced back to win three consecutive doubles matches on the second day of play.

In singles, Ermakov fell in straight sets to Notre Dame’s No. 1 player in the opening match but rebounded to win his second match handily.

Felton, another promising freshman, won both of his singles matches, while Hayes won one out of three.

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