M. Tennis Wins Rolex Doubles Finals

It doesn't get much better than this.

Everything the Harvard men's tennis team could have expected from this fall has been achieved after this weekend's ITA Men's Eastern Region Championships.

The tournament is the final fall event for the teams and the last opportunity for individual players to make a statement on the national level before the spring.

The Harvard players did just that.

Co-captain Kunj Majmudar decided that competing in the Rolex/ITA National Indoor Championships as a doubles tandem with sophomore James Blake simply was not good enough. The senior wanted to play alongside his partner in the singles draw as well, and he earned that right by reaching the finals of the tournament.

However, the best result, and the biggest surprise of the tournament, was the Crimson duo of co-captain Mike Passarella and junior Scott Clark winning the doubles title.

The Crimson squad--the third team on Harvard's own depth chart--entered the tournament as the eighth seed, but exceeded all expectations by defeating Penn State's Eric Meditz and Marc Dorfman, 7-5, 6-3, in the finals. The victory qualified the team for the Rolex Nationals as the Region I representative.

"This feels pretty good as a senior," Passarella said. "I finally get to play in one of these big tournaments. We were confident going in, especially because James [Blake] and Kunj [Majmudar] weren't playing and there isn't another dominant team in the region."

The Crimson team scored its biggest win in the quarterfinals where it faced the top-seeded and 10th-ranked team in the nation, Adam and Aaron Marchetti from Virginia Tech.

"We all knew that this was the big match because there had been a lot of upsets in the draw," Passarella said. "We knew whoever won this match would be in pretty good position."

In a match that was epic in its both length and competitiveness, Clark and Passarella dropped the first set 5-7 after having been broken in the set's last game.

Passarella, known for his ability to prevail in tough three-set matches, proved that his tenaciousness carried-over into doubles play as well. A strategic change--the Crimson team decided to play two back on their opponent's first serves--paved the way for a hard-fought turnaround.

The Crimson team got down early but broke at 1-3 after making the switch to the two-back formation.

The change allowed the team to rip off four straight games and take what appeared to be a commanding 5-3 lead with momentum in hand.

However, the best teams in the nation don't fall apart under pressure, and the Marchettis held to make it 5-4 and then broke to tie the set at 5-5.

Two games away from elimination, Passarella and Clark continued to prey on the serve of Aaron Marchetti--the Crimson broke his serve five straight games in one stretch--to go up 6-5 and held to take the set by a 7-5 margin.

Naturally, the third set was a mirror image of the first two--back-and-forth and very tense.

This time, the Crimson struck first with a break to go up 5-3. But the lead was short lived, as the Marchettis broke right back to take the set to 5-5 for the third straight time.

Naturally, Clark and Passarella went back to the well one more time, breaking Aaron Marchetti to go up 6-5. Harvard's co-captain closed things out by holding serve in a tight final game for a 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 win and a slot in the semifinals.

After taking the tough three-setter from the Marchettis, Passarella and Clark cruised, relatively, to the title. The straight set win in the finals was preceded by a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Princeton's team of Sweeney and Liu in the semifinals in which the Crimson team was never broken.

In singles, Majmudar had to contend with the Marchettis and came away with a win and a draw.

In the semifinals, the third-seeded Majmudar used all of his skills in upsetting Aaron Marchetti, the tournament's No. 1 seed.

Majmudar got broken early in his battle with Marchetti and couldn't manage to break back in dropping the first set, 4-6.

"He was a very good player, but neither of us felt comfortable with our serves in the first set," Majmudar said. "We traded a lot of breaks in the first set, but he came out on top."

The senior battled back using a mix of power and touch in his much improved serve to dominate the second set, 6-2, and tie things up.

The deciding set was nip and tuck the whole way. The players were even until 4-4, when Majmudar made his move.

"The third set was tough," Majmudar said. "With new balls we both were holding serve. At 4-4, I returned really well and had a bunch of break points. He saved about five of them before I finally broke."

Up 5-4 and serving for a spot in the Indoor Nationals, Majmudar jumped out to a quick 40-15 lead and looked ready to close things out. Marchetti wasn't going away easily and fought back to deuce before Majmudar closed him out.

"He kept coming up with big passing shots, but I kept the pressure on and closed it out," Majmudar said.

The win set up a finals match-up with the other Marchetti--Adam--but the Harvard student-athlete acted as just that--a student-athlete--and returned to campus for an academic commitment, forfeiting the finals.

"I've been playing in this tournament for four years and had never gotten past the quarterfinals, so this felt good," Majmudar said.

Majmudar credited the improvement in his performance to an improved return game that developed over the summer and during his doubles experiences this fall with Blake.

"The return has given me a lot of help from a breaking standpoint," Majmudar said. "The doubles definitely helped; you are hitting specific returns to certain spots against top national opponents."

Prior to upsetting Marchetti, Majmudar dealt with St. John's Eric Scharf in much easier fashion, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) in the quarterfinals.

"He was a decent player," Majmudar said. "I pretty much shut him down right away and took control early."

But this tournament was not just a testament to the top of the Crimson line-up.

Junior John Doran, seeded eighth, lived up to his seeding by reaching the quarterfinals before losing a hard-fought third-set tiebreaker to Princeton's Kyle Kleigerman, 3-6, 6-2, 6-7 (7-5).

Fellow junior Joe Green continued his impressive fall by reaching the round of 16 before losing after putting a major scare into Aaron Marchetti in a 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 marathon loss.

Passarella, in addition to winning the doubles title, also made the round of 16 in the singles draw before falling to Jonathon Beardsley, the second seed.

Sophomore Andrew Styperek made an appearance in the round of 16 before falling to eventual finalist and teammate Majmudar.

"I really think it was a testament to the depth and strength of this team," Assistant Coach Peter Mandeau said. "We went in without James [Blake] and still won the doubles and had a finalist in singles. Andrew Styperek isn't even in our starting lineup and made the round of 16. A number of people around tennis have said that perhaps this team wasn't as good as last year's. We had some doubts ourselves, but this shows were a stronger team that even we expected."

Amen.