Tennis Title-Less at Rolex Invitational

The Harvard men's tennis team sent seven singles players and four doubles teams to the Rolex Regional Championships held this weekend at Princeton by came away without a title in either draw.

The Crimson advanced two players, freshman Philip Tseng and sophomore Josh Hausman, to the quarterfinals in the singles draw, and the doubles tandem of Hausman and freshman Tom Blake reached the semifinals.

"It was a bummer that nobody came home with any hardware," senior captain Andrew Rueb said. "But with so many players from deeper in our line-up doing so well it really speaks well for our depth."

Hausman provided the most inspired Crimson play over the weekend.

After winning two matches Thursday to qualify for the singles tournament, Hausman won three matches in the main draw before falling in the quarterfinals to Miami's Yoni Rom 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

"I was really pleased with the way I played," Hausman said. "I was not expecting to as well as I did."

Hausman's streak took him through the fourth seed in the draw, sophomore teammate Mitty Arnold. Hausman defeated Arnold 7-6(4), 6-4, in a battle of ex-high school teammates.

"We've practiced together for so long we know how each other plays," Hausman said. "It just came down to who executed better that day."

Rueb, ranked 21st nationally and seeded second in the tournament, fell victim to an early-round upset as George Washington's Yuval Karutzy defeated the Adams House resident, 6-4, 7-5, in the third round.

"It was really disappointing for me," Rueb said. "But my opponent played a perfect match against my serve-and-volley style. There was nothing I could have done."

Tseng, who was seeded 11th in the singles draw, posted an impressive third-round win against Adam Mandell, who plays first singles for Yale and was seeded eighth in the singles draw.

In the quarterfinals, however, Tseng faced a tougher challenge in Miami's Gil Kovalski. Kovalski, the top seed in the draw defeated Tseng, 6-0, 6-4, and went on to win the tournament.

"I didn't play as well as I'd hoped," Tseng said. "I got off to a slow start and by the time I started exploiting his [Kovalski's] weaknesses it was too late."

Junior Dan Chung, who has been playing fourth and fifth singles this year for the Crimson, advanced to the second round before falling to another Miami player, Raymond Schot, 7-5, 7-5.

"I could have won that match," Chung said. "It came down to a couple of points and he made all the big shots on those big points."

In the doubles draw, the Crimson's top doubles team of Arnold and Tseng was seeded sixth but lost in the third round to the tenth-seeded Rutgers team.

Hausman and Blake were seeded twelfth in the draw but managed to advace to the semifinals before losing to the top seeded team from Miami.

Miami, which was making its first appearance in the recently-realigned Eastern Region, dominated the tournament, winning both the singles and doubles crowns.

The Hurricanes, who are ranked 12th in the nation, pose the biggest obstacle to the Crimson's path to an NCAA bid this spring.

In this weekend's action, the ECAC Champion Crimson squad fared poorly against its most powerful regional rival.

Tseng, Hausman and Chung were all eliminated by Miami players as was the Hausman-Blake doubles team.

Still, many on the Crimson squad were not impressed.

"I expected them to be a lot better," Chung said. "They were definitely beatable."

The Crimson's line-up was hurt by the absence of junior Todd Meringoff, who was sidelined by a lingering groin injury.

Meringoff, the two-time defending Rolex Eastern Regional Champion, has seen limited action this fall but should be back in the line-up for the spring campaign.

The tournament market the end of the fall season for the Crimson--a season which saw them successfully defend their ECAC crown.

The Crimson, however, did not receive the sole eastern region bid to the Rolex Indoor Team Championships. The bid was awarded, instead, to Miami, by virtue of its higher national ranking.

The Crimson will most likely get a chance to dethrone the Hurricanes in the spring and earn a bid to the NCAA tournament.

"We have gobs of talent," Rueb said. "If we work well over the winter we can make ourselves into a top-ten team and that's the direction we're heading right now."