Yale Tennis Team Breezes Harvard, 5-4

Yale edged Harvard 5-4 yesterday in tennis, but the name of the game might well have been windball, as near galeforce gusts whipped across Harvard's soggy courts.

The bout left Harvard with the title of Big Three co-champs, after a frustrating season of near-misses.

The Elis won four of six singles matches, with Harvard's wins coming in the middle of the line-up. Captain Brian Davis (three) defeated Bob McCallum 6-2, 6-4. Rocky Jarvis played his usual steady match to whip Bill Keaton 6-3, 6-2.

Yale star Jack Waltz won the critical points by edging John Levin 6-4, 7-5 at the number one spot. Mike Brooks avenged last year's loss to Bernie Adelsberg (two) by stopping the Crimson junior 9-7, 6-0. Adelsberg led 7-6 on his own serve in the first set.

Perennial winner Jose Gonzalez (five) was rendered helpless by the wind, as both he and Dave Hodges (six) lost in straight sets.

No Cigar

The Crimson, needing all three doubles matches to win, came close. Third doubles finished first, with Gonzelez and Hodges outlasting the Bulldogs 6-3, 8-10, 6-4.

It was past six o'clock and frigid as the first two doubles matches moved into overtime in their third sets. Levin and Jarvis (one) dropped their first set to Yale's outstanding senior duo of Waltz and Brooks but fought back from a 4-1 deficit to take the second, 10-8. Adelsberg and Davis (two) had won their opener, 6-2, but dropped the second, 9-7.

At four-all, Levin, having trouble serving into wind and sun, was broken. But he and Jarvis stayed alive with a series of brilliant passing shots and topspin lobs that broke Waltz. After Jarvis and Brooks held serve, the Crimson's second team won their third set, 14-12, to even the match and heighten the tension.

The Elis responded by breaking Levin's serve again, and when Waltz held, the set was Yale's, 8-6 and Harvard had lost its third 5-4 match of the season.

Harvard derived some consolation from winning the fifteen-point match, 8-7, with singles wins from Dean Bauer (eight) and Rick Sterne (ten) and doubles victories from Sterne and Kent Parrot (four) and Terry Oxford (five).