Harvard Drops Ivy Tune-Up to Bearcats

Sometimes, things come better in pairs.

That was certainly the case yesterday afternoon, as Harvard (9-8) was dominant in doubles play, sweeping all three matches against Binghamton (16-1). Yet the Crimson’s dominance in doubles didn’t translate into singles play, as Harvard fell to the Bearcats, 4-3.

“[It was] our first match home after playing well on the road in the Blue-Grey classic,” Crimson coach Dave Fish ’72 said. “It was disappointing not to make a better adjustment.”

To start things off, the combo of junior Alexei Chijoff-Evans and freshman Joshua Tchan easily won, 8-2, at the No. 3 doubles position. Junior Aba Omodele-Lucien and freshman Christo Schultz followed suit, winning 8-4 at the top doubles spot to clinch the doubles point.

“Doubles, I thought we had a lot of energy,” Tchan said. “We went out there without any hesitation. We got the doubles point pretty easily.”

Harvard has only dropped the doubles point in a dual match fives times on the season.

“We have very good doubles players,” Fish said. “They like playing doubles. It’s too bad we can’t get a couple more points for it.”

In the final doubles match, despite being down early, sophomore Alistair Felton and freshman Andy Nguyen rallied to tie the set up at 7-7. The combo went on to win the tiebreak, completing the sweep for Harvard.

To kick off singles play, Tchan cruised to an easy 6-1, 6-1 victory over Alexandre Haggai at the fifth singles slot.

“[Alexandre] was an amazing athlete,” Tchan said. “I’ve had a lot of practice with Alexei lately, so I’ve been working on my attacking game, and I tried implementing that in my match today. It just went in my favor.”

“Josh played lights out,” Fish said.

Omodele-Lucien was the next to finish, falling to Moshe Levy 6-2, 6-4 at the No. 2 singles spot.

“Aba was just a little out of sync,” Fish said. “He had been playing well in the spring trip, then took some time off to get something a little healed.”

“It just wasn’t his day today,” Tchan added.

In a contest between two top players in the Northeast, Chijoff-Evans fell to Sven Vloedgraven, 6-3, 6-3.

“Those were two great players,” Fish said. “[Vloedgraven] was just tougher and refused to miss around the edges of the court. They were both just battling side to side. [Vloedgraven] was just more tenacious not to give up that edge at all.”

Shultz went on to win at the No. 6 singles slot, defeating Binghamton’s Ruben Devos 6-2, 6-4. Shultz used a big serve and fast forehand to overpower Devos from the outset of the match.

“Christo played great out there,” Fish said.

Freshman Andy Nguyen fell to Gilbert Wong 6-3, 6-4 at the No. 3 singles spot.

With the Crimson and the Bearcats tied at 3-3, all eyes turned to the decisive No. 4 singles match. Felton won the first set for Harvard at 6-4. But Arnav Jain bounced back, winning the second set 6-3, and Felton could not recover his momentum, falling in a gritty final set, 6-4.

“Ali played great for half of the match,” Fish said. “And then got a little bit confused with his game style and didn’t continue doing what had gotten him the first set. So he began to erode a little bit.”

Binghamton came into the match boasting a 6-1 record against Ivy League opponents, with Columbia being its only loss.

“We knew in the back of our heads going in that it was going to be a really tough team to play against,” Tchan said.

“Right up through the line-up we know we were in a dog fight,” Fish said. “They took it to us. Good young coach—he’s recruited a great bunch of kids, and he beat us.”

The match served as a final tune-up for the squad, which commences Ivy League play against Columbia on Friday.

“In some ways we had to use [the Binghamton match] to get the rust off,” Fish said. “[Hopefully] we polish a little more rust off, and play a little bit better on Friday.”