Tennis

Harvard's Roger Berry fought off a rally from Amin Khoury to capture the B-flight singles, 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 at the Harvard-hosted New England Championships held over the weekend at Beren Courts. And freshman Ravi Krishna Kumar recorded a 6-3, 7-6 victory over teammate John Stinebaugh in the D division singles finals.

"Roger played really well," Harvard Coach Dave Fish said. "He moved into the varsity line-up with all of the injuries we had last year, and he got to play a lot of matches. He lost a lot of matches, but I think that helped him improve his game."

"As the freshmen feel more comfortable playing matches, I expect them to make solid contributions to the team," Fish said of Kumar's triumph.

Three Crimson doubles teams were able to reach the finals, but only one left with the gold trophy. Kumar and Ken Hao whipped a team from Yale in straight sets, 6-0, 6-2.

Arkie Engle and Berry lost in the doubles finals to a team from Dartmouth, 7-6, 6-2, while Leon Palandjian and Stinebaugh teamed up to place second in the C-doubles flight, falling to a Big Green team, 6-2, 7-5.

While Arkie Engle didn't win the A division, he did reach the finals, falling to Brown's Tim Donovan, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. Mark Leschly, who was also entered in the A-flight, lost a close 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 quarterfinal match to Dartmouth's Bruce Field.

The doubles duo of Paul Palandjian and freshman Johnathan Cardi lost a 7-6, 6-2 decision to close out the doubles for the Crimson.

In the B-division singles flight, Cardi reached the semifinals before dropping a tough, 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 decision to Dave Gollob from Yale.

Sophomore Ken Hao upset the number-one seed, Brown's Steve Ryu, 6-2, 7-6 in the quarterfinals, and he advanced to the finals with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Yale's Dave Keldgord. Hao lost a heartbreaking, 6-3, 6-3 match to Brown's Mariariu in the finals. Paul Palandjian suffered a surprising loss in the quarterfinals.