Harvard Tennis Squad Defeats Penn

A fired-up Crimson tennis team came from behind to defeat a tough and determined Penn squad with a tight 5-4 victory at Palmer Dixon Indoor Courts yesterday.

With Penn leading, 3-2 and only one singles match to play. Harvard's Chip Baird playing number five, fought off a 5-6 deficit in the third set by breaking his opponent's serve to tie the score at six apiece and then demolished Penn's Bob Lavett 5-1 in a best-of-nine tiebreaker to knot the match score for the Crimson "Chip really came through in the clutch." Harvard coach Jack Barnaby said after the match.

Win Some, Lose Some

The second and third doubles teams comprised of Todd Lundy with Hugh Hyde, and Gary Reiner with Chip Baird. won the contest for Harvard with two relatively easy victories 6-3, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-3 respectively. The first doubles, featuring captain John ingard and John Horne, has lost to Penn, 6-4, 6-2, to give the Quakers a short-lived 4-3 lead.

Harvard had two earlier chances to ice the match but failed to capitalize on either Number-two man Lundy, after winning thew first set, 6-2, dropped the second and third to Penn's Ricky Meyer Ingard at number three, lost a heart breaker in the third set to Penn's Herb Benham after demolishing him, 6-1, in the first set behind a strong offensive performance at the net. "I thought Ingard played a tremendous first set, but he just tell apart in the third." Barnaby said.

The only singles match that did not go three sets was at number one, where Harvard's Reiner took at the last four games to win the first set, 6-4 and then cruised to a 6-1 victory in the second set. "Gary played a very good all-around game, and just overpowered him." Barnaby said.

Hard-Fighting Team

"Penn had a very good, hard fighting team but so did we. We really turned in a fine team effort and pulled out a really tight match." Barnaby added.

The racquetmen will take on powerful Columbia at Palmer Dixon tomorrow at 2:00 Along with Princeton, the defending Ivy League champions, Columbia is one of the two tough teams Harvard must still beat if they hope to win the title this year. The Crimson squad was demolished by Columbia last year when three of the first six in the lineup came down with the flu just prior to the match.

"I think Columbia is slightly better than Penn, and we're simply going to have to play a better game to beat them." Barnaby said.