Crimson Tramples Terriers in Opener

The Harvard women’s tennis team sent future opponents an early warning message on Saturday that the team will be a force this spring season. The Crimson swept its cross-town rivals, the Boston University Terriers, in singles and doubles play. The 65th-ranked Harvard women met the No. 61-ranked Terriers at the Murr Center for both squads’ first dual match up of the spring. The Crimson overwhelmed BU, winning the singles matches, 6-0, and the doubles competitions, 3-0.

Harvard met the Terriers this past fall when the Crimson hosted the Harvard Fall Classic in mid-September. BU played tough through that tournament, but the Crimson, powered by their freshmen talent, prevailed. This time the Terriers had an even more daunting task, as BU was short a couple of players due to injury and forfeited the No. 6 singles slot and the No. 3 doubles position. Despite the default wins, the freshmen and sophomores that compose the majority of Harvard’s roster showcased a great deal of skill and ability through Saturday’s contested matches.

“The past two years we’ve lost our first spring match up against BU even though I thought we were always a better team,” junior captain Sam Rosekrans said. “This year we’re young but we have a better lineup, so we were able to start off stronger than ever before.”

At the No. 1 singles spot, sophomore Holly Cao—the 79th-ranked ITA player nationally—defeated Stefanie Nunic in two sets, 6-4, 6-4.

The Crimson’s four freshmen each walked away with a win at their respective singles positions as well. The 86th nationally-ranked player, Hideko Tachibana, led the charge when she battled her Terrier opponent, Francine Whu, through three sets. After dropping the second set in a tiebreaker, the rookie regained her composure and came back to win the match, 6-1, 6-7(8), 6-3.

Classmate Kristin Norton followed Tachibana’s lead in the No. 3 contest, delivering Petra Santini a 6-3, 6-3 loss.

“I thought the freshmen did a great job handling nerves and they brought a lot of energy out on the court,” Crimson coach Traci Green said. “Tachibana and Kristin Norton especially had some strong matches out here.”

At the No. 4 position, rookie Sophie Chang, ranked 95th nationally, rallied back to defeat Monika Mical in the second and third sets after falling to Mical in the first set, 6-3. Chang fought for each point in the final two sets against Mical to come out ahead, 7-5, 10-5.

Junior Agnes Sibilski clinched the singles sweep for the Crimson with a win at the No. 5 spot, because Harvard’s final freshman on the roster, Alex Lehman, won her match by default at the No. 6 position. Sibilski blew past her opponent, Inayat Khosla, in two sets, 6-2, 6-4.

In doubles’ play, Cao teamed up with Rosekrans to win the No. 1 match over Whu and Mical, 8-5. The freshmen duo of Norton and Tachibana won the No. 2 contest against Terriers Nunic and Santini, 8-2.

“Kristin and Hideko played doubles with a ton of energy,” Rosekrans said. “Kristin really brought out the best in Hideko and they’ll make a strong doubles team for this season.”

BU had to forfeit its final doubles contest of the afternoon at the No. 3 spot due to injury, so Chang and sophomore partner Samantha Gridley came away with the default victory.

Harvard carries a lot of youth on its roster, but its solid performances early in the spring season may indicate future success down the road.

“We are a really strong team but our goal continues to be just to train the right way, to train the way we want to play matches,” Green said. “So far it has been working and we just have to keep taking it one match at a time.”

The Crimson will travel to Waco, Texas later this week to compete against Baylor University on Friday, Jan. 29th, and then against Brown and Nevada on Saturday.

—Staff writer Jessica L. Flakne can be reached at jflakne@fas.harvard.edu.