Women's Tennis Extends Late-Season Run, Wins 6-1

With its 6-1 victory over Dartmouth (8-10, 1-6), the Harvard women’s tennis team (13-6, 5-2) wrapped up a late season run that was too little, too late for the team’s Ivy League championship hopes. Despite winning four in a row to close out the year—including a 5-2 home victory over then-no. 35 Yale—the team finished third in the Ivy League, doomed by two early season losses.

“We are very fortunate to be in a very competitive league,” coach Traci Green said. “A lot of the top teams were very close in level and I know our team sees that and believes that. On any given day, any given team can beat anyone and that’s a very realistic mindset.”

Both of the Crimson’s losses during Ivy League play came by close 4-3 margins, with Princeton and eventual champion Columbia taking the deciding singles match in the third set each time. Against Columbia, a final set tiebreaker was needed to decide the contest; had it gone the other way, Harvard would be the league champion.

“The season as a whole was definitely very emotional,” freshman Hai-Li Kong said. “We were already really close but it was an amazing bonding month. We ended the season on a high note with those wins against Brown and Dartmouth and ending with that winning streak was good.”

On Saturday, the Crimson got off to a quick early start by sweeping the doubles contests. Co-captain Hideko Tachibana, playing her last match in a Crimson uniform, and freshman Amanda Lin triumphed 8-2 at line one and co-captain Kristin Norton and sophomore Sylvia Li clinched the doubles point with an 8-4 victory over their Big Green opponents. Kong and junior Hannah Morrill were up a break, 7-5, over the Big Green’s Jeri Reichel and Juienne Keong when play was stopped.

In singles, two freshmen continued their double digit winning streaks with straight set victories. After a tight 6-4 first set, Kong won her 12th straight match going away by blanking her opponent in a 6-0 second set. Lin surrendered just three games in her 15th straight victory, defeating Dartmouth’s Christina Danosi, 6-1, 6-2. Lin finished the season with 26 wins in her 29 matches, including a 16-1 record in dual matches for the team and an undefeated 7-0 record in Ancient Eight play.

At lines one and three, respectively, Tachibana and Norton ended their careers on high notes with straight-set wins over their Dartmouth opponents. Norton broke her opponent late in the first set to take it by a 7-5 margin, using a pair of breaks in a 6-2 second to clinch the victory. Tachibana allowed just four games in her victory over Dartmouth’s Katherine Yau to finish 10-8 at the top line for the Crimson on the year.

“It was a very collective effort,” Kong said. “It wasn’t a clincher (4-3) match but everyone played really well. The seniors were playing their hearts out because it was their last match. They were the ones that clinched our doubles match and that was great.”

During their four years on the team, Tachibana and Norton never won an Ivy League championship, finishing in the top four their freshman and senior years. Over their careers, the team won 47 matches and lost only 30, including a 13-6 record in 2013. Playing together as a doubles team this year, the pair ended the season with a 7-3 match record at line one, with all other combinations the Crimson put at the top line going a combined 2-6 at the same position.

Despite never having won an Ancient Eight title, Green said that the two seniors played very important roles in shaping the culture of the program and in mentoring the younger players. According to Green, this mentoring helped younger players like Lin, Kong, and He—who went a combined 33-6 for the Crimson during dual matches and 19-2 during Ivy League matches—develop over the course of the season.

“Kristin and Hideko definitely left their mark and left a huge impact on the culture of the team,” Green said. “They are both hugely valuable to their team. Their team loves and respects them and it is very heartwarming to see the type of leadership they exude every day in practice and matches. The future looks bright for us and that’s in large part due to the work that our seniors put in.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at davidfreed@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @CrimsonDPFreed.