Doubles Team Crowned Champs

In professional tennis, fans generally pay attention to singles action, but Harvard’s dominating performance this weekend proved that Crimson fans should be paying more attention to the doubles.

The Harvard men’s tennis team traveled to New Haven, Conn., for the ITA Northeast Regional Championships, which started this past Thursday and ended yesterday.

Though none of the six players entered in the singles draw managed to make it past the fourth round, the Crimson dominated in the men’s doubles tournament. Of the two teams Harvard entered, one duo made it to the semifinals and another went all the way to win the championship for the second year in a row.

“I thought we had a very strong showing [at] this tournament,” Crimson assistant coach Andrew Rueb said. “I think singles was solid with a lot of players advancing really far. We still have work to do, though.”

The second-seeded team of junior Alistair Felton and sophomore Andy Nguyen were the standouts for Harvard in the tournament. The duo had a bye for the first round, then cruised through the second round, 8-4. After prevailing through tough battles in the next two rounds, the pair pulled out an 8-5 victory in the semifinals. In the final match, the Felton and Nguyen crushed their opponents, 8-3, to take the doubles title.

“I think we did pretty well,” Nguyen said. “We started out strong and closed the net really well in the beginning of the tournament. [In the third round], we started out slowly and were down two match points against Cornell. It was a rollercoaster ride in terms of energy, but we pulled it out when we needed to.”

The duo of junior Jonathan Pearlman and sophomore Christo Schultz also proved to be a formidable pair for Harvard. The team fought through the first three rounds, winning each match convincingly. After cruising through an 8-1 quarterfinal match, the two faced bad luck when they had to pull out of the tournament.

“It was really unfortunate that we had to pull out,” Schultz said. “We had to stop because I had a midterm I couldn’t get out of on Monday. I wished it could have been both of [the Harvard teams] in the final, but I’m really happy for [Felton and Nguyen].”

Though Harvard did not have as much success with its singles matches, there were still surprises from unseeded freshman Casey MacMaster and qualifier Felton. MacMaster advanced through his first three matches in straight sets before falling in a three-setter to 12th-seeded Daniel Hoffman of Yale. The rookie held the early advantage by winning the first set, 4-6, but then let the next two slip away, 6-1 and 6-2.

Felton also surpassed expectations by moving through to the third round.  He struggled through his first match, but eventually pulled out of a tiebreak in the third set. Felton then fought through two tough sets, 6-4 and 7-5, to move on to the third round, before eventually falling to Sam Fife of Brown in straight sets.

Two of the Harvard seeds, sophomores Joshua Tchan and Nguyen, both fell in the second round after having byes in the first round. Tchan lost a tough three-setter to Alex Skinner of Boston College, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4. Nguyen dropped a straight sets match to unseeded Mike Hill of Brown.

Schultz, the 14th seed, also progressed to the fourth round before going down to eighth-seeded John Huang of Yale. He won an easy straight sets match in the second round and a nail-biter in the third round, 7-6, 3-6, 7-5.

“I played great in the singles [in the first couple of rounds],” Schultz said. “Huang’s a good friend of mine. He was playing out of his mind and ten times better than me that day.”

Pearlman had similar results, receiving a bye in the first round and cruising through his next two rounds. He ultimately fell in the fourth round to the Bears’ Fife, 6-4, 6-1.

Next up for the Crimson is the Big Crimson Halloween Invitational at home next weekend. The week after, Felton and Nguyen will team up again for the ITA National Championships in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., to round out the fall season.

“We’re looking to really improve conditioning and fitness to build that strong foundation,” Rueb said. “The fall is about improving [for the spring] and we’re using a lot of time with guys individually to improve parts of their game.”

—Staff writer Steven T.A. Roach can be reached at sroach@fas.harvard.edu.