No. 65 Crimson Batters Yale, Loses in Final Home Contest

As the Harvard men’s tennis team demonstrated this weekend, all-time records often have little bearing on the winner of the current matchup.

The Crimson faced off against the Yale Bulldogs and the Brown Bears this weekend in the 90th and 80th meetings between the teams, respectively.

Harvard (14-10, 3-3 Ivy) picked up a 5-2 win on Friday in New Haven, Conn., against Yale (10-11, 2-4) to go up in the head-to-head record, 64-26.

The Crimson, however, could not carry the momentum forward against Brown (15-6, 2-4).

Harvard had held an impressive 73-6 edge in past meetings going into yesterday’s matchup, but it lost its final home match of the season to the Bears, 4-3.

“They were both good matches,” assistant coach Andrew Rueb said. “The league this year has been astonishingly close. I don’t think it’s ever seen this many 4-3 matches. With that razor edge of difference, sometimes you’re on the winning side, and sometimes you’re on the losing side.”

BROWN 4, NO. 65 HARVARD 3

Harvard started the matchup against Brown by picking up the doubles point for the second time in two matches this weekend.

Junior Ali Felton and sophomore Andy Nguyen dominated their opposing pair, 8-3, to earn the squad’s first win yesterday afternoon.

Captain Aba Omodele-Lucien and freshman Casey MacMaster followed up with an 8-6 victory, capturing the doubles point on a Brown forced error off of Omodele-Lucien’s big serve on match point.

The Crimson, however, did not produce the same level of play in the singles, as four of Harvard’s six players lost their matches.

Felton and Nguyen both lost in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2 and 6-3, 6-3, respectively. Omodele-Lucien progressed through the first set easily, taking it, 6-1, but his opponent, Sam Fife, turned the match on its head in the second and third sets.

Despite fighting off three break points early on in the third set, Omodele-Lucien dropped the last five games for a 1-6, 6-1, 6-1 loss.

Junior Jon Pearlman and sophomore Josh Tchan were the two singles winners for the Crimson. The two players had to battle—especially in the second set—but they both pulled out 6-2, 6-4 victories.

“There was a long game of about 10 or 15 deuce points at 3-all when he was serving, and I think it wore him down,” Pearlman said. “After that game, I won the next four games pretty easily. I think he was fatigued from that game and I put the pressure on him too.”

The outcome of the dual came down to MacMaster’s match.

The match was close, and MacMaster fought back from the brink of defeat, but he eventually lost the match, 7-5, 7-5.

NO. 65 HARVARD 5, YALE 2

After dropping the doubles point to Princeton last weekend that resulted in a 4-3 loss, Harvard came out strong on Friday in the tandem matches.

Two of the Crimson duos picked up key wins to score Harvard’s first point of the afternoon.

Felton and Nguyen earned the first win, 8-3, which would be the duo’s first of two match wins this weekend.

Pearlman and Tchan followed with another victory against, Erik Blumenkranz and Joel Samaha, 8-5 to secure the first point for the Crimson.

The same four players who came out victorious in their doubles matches also managed to pull out wins in their respective singles matches.

All four players managed to pull through in straights.

Playing at the No. 1 spot, Pearlman cruised through the first set, 6-1, but had to battle in the second set. He eventually prevailed to earn a point for Harvard, 6-1, 7-5.

Felton won in two sets that both went to tiebreakers, 7-6, 7-6. The win gave Felton his 21st match victory of the season.

Tchan and Nguyen, the two other Crimson winners, also pulled out victories in impressive fashion. Tchan dropped just five games on his way to a 6-3, 6-2 win against Jordan Abergel.

Nguyen also dominated his opponent for a 6-3, 6-4 win.

MacMaster, one of the only two Harvard players to lose a match on the day, ended his seven-match winning streak with a 7-6, 6-3 loss to Daniel Hoffman.

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