SEASON RECAP: Year Culminates with Tourney Bid

The 2010 season was a test for the Harvard women’s tennis team.

In 2008, under first-year head coach Traci Green, the squad went 2-17 and finished consecutive seasons with a losing record for the first time since 1980.

In 2009, forgetting its previous struggles, Green’s squad fought its way to a 13-8 record and tied with Princeton for the Ivy title with a 6-1 league performance. But Harvard lost the tiebreaker to the Tigers and therefore did not automatically qualify for the NCAA tournament, and its No. 66 ITA ranking did not land it an at-large bid.

The 2010 season presented itself as a test of whether last season’s success was a fluke. With the year completed, the team now knows the answer is a resounding, “No.”

The Crimson (14-8, 6-1 Ivy) began the season with a mediocre 6-6 record, due to a difficult schedule that included seven top-50 opponents, but turned its season around on its spring-break trip to the West Coast, winning eight of its last 10 matches to secure an at-large NCAA tournament berth, a second-place Ivy League finish, and a No. 39 ITA ranking.

“Since my freshman year we’ve improved increasingly,” junior captain Samantha Rosekrans said. “We’ve come together a lot more and become much more cohesive.”

After sweeping Boston University to open the season, Harvard lost to current No. 1 Baylor in the opening round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend.

In the ECAC tournament, the Crimson earned third place in the eight-team field with wins over Cornell and No. 33 Princeton and a loss to No. 44 Yale. The next few weeks also included losses to No. 22 Illinois, No. 26 South Florida, and a disappointing 7-0 sweep against No. 12 California.

But the loss to the Golden Bears served as the wakeup call Harvard needed to play up to its potential. In the next match against No. 38 St. Mary’s, the Crimson was trailing, 3-0, when it turned its season around.

Freshman Kristin Norton and sophomore Holly Cao each won their matches in two sets, while Rosekrans and freshman Alex Lehman both pushed their matches into a third set after dropping the first.

Lehman won her final set, 6-4, while the captain battled to finally win a contest-determining tiebreak, 11-9.

“We came out with a new mindset,” Rosekrans said after the match. “A new day meant a clean slate. We knew it would be a huge deal if we won...[The win] came at a crucial point in the season. It really boosted our morale.”

After its trip to the Golden State, the squad began Ivy League play and defeated No. 61 Brown, No. 44 Yale, and No. 60 Dartmouth en route to a 6-1 conference record. The only mishap occurred in Princeton, N.J., where the Tigers won, 5-2.

“We were hoping to win Ivies, but Princeton got the better of us,” Rosekrans said.

Despite its second-place finish in the Ivy League, Harvard’s ranking was good enough to earn it a berth in the NCAA tournament, in which it lost to No. 19 Georgia in the first round.

“It was a great honor to make the NCAA tournament,” Green said. “It was also a great learning experience for our team. We learned we can compete against nationally-ranked teams. Next year, we know that, and we can raise our goals and be prepared to win the first round.”

In addition to the team’s success, individual players earned accolades of their own.

Cao went 15-4 (5-2 Ivy) at No. 1, culminating in an Ivy-best No. 73 ITA ranking and a berth in the NCAA singles championships, which began yesterday.

Freshman Hideko Tachibana went 14-6 (6-1 Ivy) at No. 2 to unanimously win Ivy League Rookie of the Year. Both she and Cao earned unanimous All-Ivy First Team honors.

At No. 3, Norton went 14-7 (5-2 Ivy) and made the All-Ivy Second Team, while Rosekrans found her groove at No. 4 after the California match, winning eight straight matches before losing at Dartmouth.

Cao and Rosekrans teamed up to unanimously make the All-Ivy First Team in doubles, while Tachibana and Norton made the second team.

With this year’s successes, the Crimson looks to improve once again next season.

As a squad not losing any seniors to graduation and recruiting three incoming freshmen, the 2010-11 campaign holds high expectations for Harvard women’s tennis.

“Next year, I think we’ll be setting the bar higher and trying to maintain our top-40 ranking,” Rosekrans said.

—Staff writer Eric L. Michel can be reached at emichel@fas.harvard.edu.